Connecting a 9825A to the outside world

[David Ramsey]

Specifically, I'm trying to connect it to an Epson LQ850 printer.

I though the cable on that 98032A parallel interface I saw on TAS looked like a Centronics connector. It's not: although it's the same class of connector, it's much larger. None of the other cables available for that interface seem to be a fit, although if I could find an "option 066" cable, I could use it to connect the 9825 to my 9866 thermal printer. Which would work about as well as the Epson.

Is what I want to do (connect to a "modern" parallel printer) even possible?

[Dave F]

Not exactly answering your question, but couldn't you use a 98036A to print to a serial port, either a printer directly; or a terminal emulator to be captured and dumped to a printer?

Dave

[David Ramsey]

True, if I had a computer with a serial port.

Hey! My Apple //e has a serial port...

Might not be a bad idea. I'd have to write some software on the Apple // side, of course.

[Tony Duell]

Yes, it should be quite easy to link the 98032 to a Centronics printer.

IIRC the 'standard' 98032 came with an unterminated (bare wires) cable. The user was expected to solder it to the correct connector for whatever device they wished to use and to solder a number (16?) of jumper wires inside the rear hood of the 98032 to set up things like the polarity of the data, polarity of the handshake lines, etc.

The operating/service manual for the 98032 should be on the Australian museum site. The specification for the Centronics interface is easily available. It's just a matter of matching them up.