Printer From CP/M?

Discuss construction, troubleshooting, and operation of the Altair 8800c computer

Printer From CP/M?

Postby toml_12953 » November 19th, 2020, 6:12 pm

I have the high-density version of CP/M for the Altair 8800c and a C700 Centronics printer interface. The interface works fine with Altair BASIC. Is there a way to print from CP/M? I tried sending the output to PRN but nothing happens. Is there a way to associate PRN with the Centronics interface? If so, how?

TIA
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Re: Printer From CP/M?

Postby AltairClone » November 25th, 2020, 12:30 am

The BIOS does not have support for the Centronics printer interface. Here are the IOBYTE options for the LST: device:

; 00 - TTY on SIO at I/O address 0
; 01 - CRT on 2SIO port 1
; 10 - LPT on LPC board
; 11 - UL1 on 2SIO port 2
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Re: Printer From CP/M?

Postby toml_12953 » November 25th, 2020, 5:25 am

AltairClone wrote:The BIOS does not have support for the Centronics printer interface. Here are the IOBYTE options for the LST: device:

; 00 - TTY on SIO at I/O address 0
; 01 - CRT on 2SIO port 1
; 10 - LPT on LPC board
; 11 - UL1 on 2SIO port 2


Thanks for the reply. My terminology sucks! I have an LPC board, not the C700. I'll try option 10. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll try an RS-232 to Centronics converter such as this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Box-Converter-Centronics-Interface-PWR/dp/B0064D16GE
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Re: Printer From CP/M?

Postby AltairClone » November 25th, 2020, 8:53 am

You can set the LST: device to LPT: as follows:

A>STAT LST:=LPT:
A>

This will remain in effect until the next cold boot.
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