alt@ecsvax.UUCP (06/18/84)
Recently I had a relatively minor problem interfacing a FX80
printer to an IBM PC. This particular FX80 is shared by several
other users. The printer has a serial board in addition to the
standard parallel port. For several months one user could
blithely use the printer via his parallel port on a USI multi-
function board. Then a newly purchased PC was connected to the
FX80 via a standard IBM printer card. The printer would only
print garbage. Yet another PC user with an AST parallel port
tried his luck with the same FX80 and all was well.
The consensus was that the standard IBM printer card was not
properly working. Upon closer investigation, however, it was
discovered that by disabling the serial interface board in the
FX80 via a dip switch, the PC with the IBM printer card would
function properly.
My question to net-landers is:
Why does the IBM printer card require the serial interface
in the FX80 to be disabled while the AST and USI boards do
not?
Dip switched to death,
Larry Taylor
ecsvax!alt