All,
Looks like it was a problem with the adapter. My theory that bits 2 and
3 were shorted (oh, that's right, not my theory, but Steve's) was
confirmed with a few more character test. So, I posted in the retro
printer board, sent several 'contact us' posts to the retro folks (their
site sucks), and then...
Full disclaimer, I am NOT a hardware guy!! But, I madly took that
adapter apart and then after doing both sides, saw where some solder was
bleeding over from one pin to another on the female side... and a bit of
exacto knife wizardry later and a bit of worry that I'd destroy it, and
voila:
10 RMM ABCLMNOLMNOLMNOPQRS\]^_\]^
20 RMM abclmnolmnolmnopqrs|}~|}~
30 RMM 0123<=>?<=0 -_=/_]?>/",<.>
<0 RMM /?!@#,-^..,-
10 REM ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
20 REM abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
30 REM 01234567890 -_=+[];:'",<.>
40 REM /?!@#$%^&*()
Yay!
Now, I can go about setting this goofy retroprinter up properly.
Thanks for the forbearance, assistance and sympathy.
Will
On 3/17/24 5:46 PM, Stephen Adolph wrote:
Bit 2 shorted to bit 3?
On Sunday, March 17, 2024, Will Senn <will.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
I tried every config setting... twice or more :).
It's super consistent in that bits 2, and 3, counting from zero,
from the least significant bits, are having some kind of issue
(they aren't always, zero, or one, but they are always the bits
that are wrong and they are consistently wrong (of the 40 chars or
so I tested):
<0x7f> vs w
01111111
01110111
00001000 (b3 1->0)
\ vs T
01011100
01010100
00001000 (b3 1->0)
4 vs <
00110100
00111100
00001000 (b3 0->1)
5 vs =
00110101
00111101
00001000 (b3 0->1)
6 vs >
00110110
00111110
00001000 (b3 0->1)
7 vs ?
00110111
00111111
00001000 (b3 0->1)
8 vs <
00111000
00111100
00000100 (b3 0->1)
9 vs =
00111001 (b3 0->1)
00111101
00000100
Weird, huh? Anybody seen anything like it? Can I troubleshoot it
with a multimeter?
Will
On 3/17/24 2:13 PM, Will Senn wrote:
Yep, it's consistent. It took me a while to make some progress on
this. I tried redoing the Centronics side of the cable, and
here's my source vs what the pi sees:
10 PRINT "Hello, world!"
20 GOTO 10
10 PRMN\ "Lmllo, orll!"
20 OO\O 10
I'm not sure how to troubleshoot...
I found this in the retroprinter handbook:
Missing Characters or Repeated Characters:
This is generally because the equipment sending the printout is using
a specific timing mechanism and not necessarily adopting the correct
Centronics signal methods for acknowledgement of data.
We have added the following configuration options to help address
this:
/root/config/handshaking
This allows you to specify how the handshaking is handled between
the computer and the Retro-Printer. This can help overcome issues
with lost characters or repeated characters when the equipment
misses the busy / acknowledge signals.
The parameter takes a value between 0 and 4.
0 = Busy On (for 5ms), Busy Off, Ack On (for signal time), Ack Off
1 = Ack On (for signal time), Busy On, Ack Off, Busy Off
2 = Busy On (for 5ms), Ack On (for signal time), Busy Off, Ack Off
3 = Ack On (for signal time), Ack Off, Busy On (for 5ms), Busy Off
4 = Busy On and Ack On (for signal time), Ack Off and Busy Off
Default is 0
Any idea how the M100 handshakes?
Will
On 3/17/24 7:18 AM, Mike Stein wrote:
Is it consistent, i.e. do you always get the same garbled output
for a given file?
At a fast glance it looks like bits 2 and/or 3 are being
dropped; have you checked the computer to Pi cable and connectors?
m
On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 2:14 AM Will Senn <will.s...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I am finally coming back around to this. I bought a
retroprinter a year and half ago or so and shelved it out of
frustration. Now, I know a lot more about this sorta stuff
and so I pulled it out, updated the software to latest and
tried to get it working.
The PI prints a test page fine, but it won't print anything
I send it from the M100. After hours of troubleshooting, it
appears that whatever codes the pi is sending aren't DMP-15,
EPSON ESC/P or Plain Text codes... When I do llist, I see
the data coming across to the retroprinter and have set up a
file to capture, but I can't find anything that will make
sense of the data.
Here's a sample:
10 PRMN\ "lmllo"
1= RMS\ORM
=0>NORM=0\O1>RMALR,M-,Q,,M-,C,,M,0-,C,,M,1->CL,M-=0>NM\\M
20 M=0
2= O=0>OOS]B<0
30 OOS]B<=
It looks like reasonably valid data and not complete
gibberish, but who am I to judge. Is it one of:
Epson ESC/P 9 Pin - didn't work, when I tried it
Epson ESC/P 24/48 Pin
HP Printer (PCL3 or PCL5)
HP Plotter (HP-GL)
IBM ProPrinter
Plain Text- didn't work, when I tried it
Postscript
Printronix-P Series
Printronix-S Series
Seiko QT-2100P
Siemens PT-88
Apple Image Writer II
Seiko STP
Star Micronics SP700
Tandy DMP-105- didn't work, when I tried it
Help and thank you.
