Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!metro!socs.uts.edu.au!colin
From: colin@socs.uts.edu.au (Colin Panisset I)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Fun with Printers
Message-ID: <1991Mar26.082739.5410@socs.uts.edu.au>
Date: 26 Mar 91 08:27:39 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Dis Organization, of course...
Lines: 27
Approved: cthulhu


  Ever wished you had a printer with your <brand-name> machine, but the only 
thing you had was an ancient Commodore MPS-802 printer? 

  Try this - hook up the parallel port of your <brand-name> to the user port
of the Commodore 64 (or Vic 20 (remember those?)), and write a lump of machine
code on your 64 to grab data from the user port, convert it to PETSCII, and 
chuck it out to the serial port - easy, quick, and gives you a 64k print buffer
to boot! 

  The only problem occurs when you're trying this in a smallish room, with a
large-footprint machine in one corner of a smallish desk, a vt131 in another
corner, and your C= 64 and printer around the edges. It becomes important to 
learn to balance coffee cups on keyboards with toppling...

  Of course, on a C= 64, it doesn't matter if you spill the coffee on the
keyboard - I once spilt milk down there, and the only thing that happened was
that it started to stink after about a week.

  Ah, the days of yore...
-- 
/      colin@ultima.socs.uts.edu.au || Colin Panisset || Oi! You!             /
/  All hail Discordia! <=> <- Meaningless symbol. "African or European?"      /
/ "Come now Baldric, the ape-creatures of the Indus have mastered this..."    /
/ Harry Coin, Ben Volpe, Lee Harvey Oswald, Frank Sullivan - You choose...    /