From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2020 09:08:44 +1100 (EST) Subject: [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) In-Reply-To: <20201109043619.GO99027@eureka.lemis.com> References: <20201106014109.GP26296@mcvoy.com> <175409f6-af94-601e-3db3-a5af5d7f64d0@gmail.com> <20201106225825.GE99027@eureka.lemis.com> <20201109043619.GO99027@eureka.lemis.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > The Qume printers seemed to have been the best round 1980 when we used > them in our applications. In particular, a large choice of wheels and > fine-grained spacing. I forget how the spacing worked. Presumably some sort of a table lookup, based on which character is about to be hit? Or are you referring to the micro-spacing itself? > The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the > /360 itself. The model numbers I recall were 735, and the newer > generation 2731/2735. The last digit related to the carriage width > (11"/15"). I once had a fine collection of goofballs (as we called them); sadly lost in a house move :-( > Round the time in question I bought a second-hand 735 machine. It had > an arcane interface that directly talked to the magnets. I built an > interface for it to a parallel port [...] I'd like to know a bit more about that interface... You'd have to control the carriage, roller, swivel/tilt/hit etc. How did you detect the BREAK key to get the 360's attention and unlock the keyboard? -- Dave