[comp.periphs.printers] IBM Pageprinter 3812 via RS232 woes

slootman@dri.nl (Paul Slootman) (03/22/91)

Hi,

I'm in the process of trying to connect an IBM pageprinter 3812 via
the serial (RS232C) line. It's a printer belonging to one of our (new)
customers; they had an IBM System/36 which is being replaced by a Unix
System V box (the one WE sold them...) The printer was connected via
Twinax (at least, that's my best guess), and had some sort of adapter
added to the back of the printer. This adapter was connnected to the
RS422 and the DC outlet, and had two connectors for what I suppose is
twinax.

I've removed the adapter, and checked the switches for the serial
interface. These were all set to default (according to the "hardware
reference library"), i.e. RS232, 9600/n/8/1, etc. This surprises me
(the adapter was hooked up to the RS422). I tried connecting the
printer to a PC running MS-DOS, followed the instructions in said
manual to print the file "PRINTME.PRN". The printer gets the data (he
says observing the RD led on the breakout box doing its thing), but
nada comes out the printer. HELP!

I also noted the TD led (the signal coming out of the printer)
lighting up about twice every second. I fired up ProcommPlus to see
what it was, but all I got was a character (ASCII 0xC7 at 9600/n/8/1)
that doesn't seem to make any sense.

What am I doing wrong? I usually manage to get this type of thing
working for me, but I've met my match!

Please email
============ (two reasons: one, we don't get bit.listserv.page-l here :-(,
two, it's probably something stupid I've overlooked or so and we don't
want to bore anyone. I'll summarize if it does turn out to be
interesting enough...)

Thanks!

Paul.
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