jeepcj2a@tc.fluke.COM (Dale A. Chaudiere) (09/12/88)
Any comments on the Gorilla RS-232 printer for use with an ATARI 800. I
have a chance to pick one up for $60. It is unused and comes with the
R-verter RS-232 to ATARI serial bus converter. The seller had a 400 and
claims it only works with an 800 or 800XL. Is this true? Is this a good
deal?
Thanks,
--
jeepcj2a@tc.fluke.COM Dale Chaudiere (206) 356-5894
. John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
/! \_. P.O. Box C9090, M/S 272G
'o"""o` Everett, WA 98206 USA rbrown@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Russell Brown) (09/13/88)
In article <5141@fluke.COM> jeepcj2a@tc.fluke.COM (Dale A. Chaudiere) writes: >Any comments on the Gorilla RS-232 printer for use with an ATARI 800. >It comes with an R-verter RS-232 to Atari serial port converter. >The seller had a 400 and claims it only works with an 800 or 800XL. I would be somewhat wary of this claim about the 400/800/800XL business. The serial ports for the 400 and 800 are the same (the old 800; it's possible the XL is different -- though there's no reason why it should be). One possibility is that there is something wrong with the serial port on his 400. I once encountered an 800 which didn't work with a disk drive, although it did work with its printer interface; as I recall, one of the lines on the serial port didn't work, but the interface didn't use it. Or perhaps it was that the interface wouldn't pass one of the lines from one serial connector to the other. It's been a while. But anyway, I would be extremely hesitant to buy the thing without seeing it work on MY machine. (Note that my Atari cynicism is born of numerous accounts of things like I just mentioned, having to do with just about every aspect of the old 400s and 800s. Particularly having to do with things which would run on one machine, but not on a seemingly identical machine). If you do try it out, and it works, then it is probably worth the price. About the only thing that ever goes wrong with these setups once you get them working is an occasional chip burnout.
ken@hpclkms.HP.COM (Kenneth Sumrall) (09/15/88)
/ hpclkms:comp.sys.atari.8bit / rbrown@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Russell Brown) / 5:53 pm Sep 12, 1988 / In article <5141@fluke.COM> jeepcj2a@tc.fluke.COM (Dale A. Chaudiere) writes: >>Any comments on the Gorilla RS-232 printer for use with an ATARI 800. >>It comes with an R-verter RS-232 to Atari serial port converter. >>The seller had a 400 and claims it only works with an 800 or 800XL. > >I would be somewhat wary of this claim about the 400/800/800XL business. >The serial ports for the 400 and 800 are the same (the old 800; it's possible ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >the XL is different -- though there's no reason why it should be). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Actually, they are slightly different, though I never ran into a problem where the difference mattered. The original 800 SIO port had 12V on one of the pins. The 800XL puts out 5V on this pin. (This is because the 800 ran off of an low voltage AC power pack and rectified its DC internally, whereas the 800XL runs off of a 5V DC power pack, and thats all it has to work with) Ken "Just thought I'd shoot my mouth off again" Sumrall ken@hpclkms@hplabs.hp.com ...!hplabs!hpclkms!ken