Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!cornell!rbrown
From: rbrown@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Russell Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: ATARI 800 printers
Keywords: Gorilla
Message-ID: <20960@cornell.UUCP>
Date: 13 Sep 88 00:53:07 GMT
References: <5141@fluke.COM>
Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP
Reply-To: rbrown@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Russell Brown)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY
Lines: 21

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.