10 Nov
2020
10 Nov
'20
4:08 a.m.
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