Setup improved and a new printer :)

[orion70]

Hi all, I recently managed to move the reset button of the Mega-Cart from the long side to the short, so that my Arfon Micro expansion can finally be used with the closed metal lid:

MC open (never seen one ):


With button moved to the side, it fits perfectly, even if the other side would have been a better position, but well, what it's done it's done


Working cart with lid closed:


I also found a new, boxed, and working Citizen dual-color printer:


It fits the whole setup design-wise:


It's a nice little printer, works with a 70 mm wide roll of paper and standard ink ribbons, both very easy to find. Of course, printed characters are very small, but I like its extreme compactness . Will post scans of the manual in this thread ASAP.

[Mike]

It's a nice little printer, works with a 70 mm wide roll of paper and standard ink ribbons, both very easy to find. Of course, printed characters are very small, but I like its extreme compactness . Will post scans of the manual in this thread ASAP.

If it happens to be a Citizen iDP-560-CD, two scans are available at DLH/Bombjack:

https://commodore.bombjack.org/commodor ... Manual.pdf (raw scan, 5.4 MB)

https://commodore.bombjack.org/commodor ... rinter.pdf (cleaned up; B/W; 891 KB)

Adaption of my MPS801 hardcopy routine left as exercise for the reader.


P.S. page 9 reads: "We do not suggest using [reverse] mode of printing for more than five consecutive lines since extended printing in this mode may damage the print head." Of course that also applies to dark parts of a hardcopy. You've been warned. ... (well, it never has been a good idea to do this, TBH. That's the reason my MPS 801 hardcopy allows to invert the picture).

[orion70]

If it happens to be a Citizen iDP-560-CD, two scans are available at DLH/Bombjack

Yep Mike, I didn't notice that it was already published. Thank you.

Adaption of my MPS801 hardcopy routine left as exercise for the reader.

P.S. page 9 reads: "We do not suggest using [reverse] mode of printing for more than five consecutive lines since extended printing in this mode may damage the print head." Of course that also applies to dark parts of a hardcopy. You've been warned. ... (well, it never has been a good idea to do this, TBH. That's the reason my MPS 801 hardcopy allows to invert the picture).

I'm perfectly able to adapt your program, but won't do it exactly for the above mentioned reason
OTOH, five consecutive lines are more or less 200 characters, which seems to indicate that the print head is quite fragile. It's surprising, given that e.g. the MPS801 is considered to be a robust, almost eternal printer.

Meanwhile, brand new paper rolls arrived today, so I can trash the original dark yellow one. BTW, here's how the print test output looks like (roughly @ 4x magnification, grayscale, dark background due to paper yellowing):



Really like those tiny dots .

[highinfidelity]

Nice to see that your VIC still has a nice corner in your home!

[mrr19121970]

I think the reset button should be nearer the top? This way you can press it without poking your finger behind the VIC20

[orion70]

Nice to see that your VIC still has a nice corner in your home!

Yep it's not a bad corner after all . All I must do now is to find the time between wife and daughter... hope it will increase with little Emma growing up, and finding independent ways to spend her time. Same for wife

I think the reset button should be nearer the top? This way you can press it without poking your finger behind the VIC20

My total fail - it's the worst place I could choose TBH. Nearer the top, and/or on the other short side would have been much better. But the chassis doesn't press it, leaving at least 2-3 mm between them, and I usually reset from the Princess device. Also, don't want to drill another hole in the shell.

If I'll ever use the MC in a "normal" VIC setup (i.e., no expander), or sell it, I don't think the current position will be an issue. Plus, the old hole is still there.

[majikeyric]

Great setup Orion

not easy to remove the SD card from the Princess though

[orion70]

Thank you!

not easy to change the SD card from the Princess though

Why should I? A mere 128 Mb is more than I need to store everything VIC. And the lid rests on the chassis free of screws anyway...

[majikeyric]

Good point

[orion70]

Back to the printer, I wonder if it can be of any use, besides the "normal" word processing, database, and spreadsheet applications.
Is anyone aware of games with partial involvement of a printer? I'm thinking about RPGs or the like with printable stats, or something more subtle, like games with printer output, similar to early Star Trek on mainframes w/out monitor output. Couldn't Avalon Hill's games be modified to (at least partially) print out the response to player's commands? Nukewar or B-1 Nuclear Bomber could answer to the player's input with teletype-like output, much in the mood of the roaring cold-war years .

[majikeyric]

I worked on mainframes (IBM) during years, I wasn't aware there were games for them, especially using printers

[orion70]

Plenty of them

E.g. Baseball (bold added):

Baseball was the first baseball video game that allowed players to manage the game as it unfolded, rather than just picking players at the beginning of a game. The program is documented at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Baseball was continually updated through 1974, and distributed to other PDP-10 installations. The text-based game had each player control the pitcher or the batter; they would enter their intention to, for example, pitch to or walk the batter, or switch hitters. The batting player could direct on-base players to steal, and the batter to hit. The results of the play would be printed out onto paper as a verbose description, like a radio description of the game.

Running commentary on paper... great idea.

[EDIT] Found one for the VIC!

Star Trek.printer.prg
A Star Trek game with printer output.

...in Danish

[orion70]

I read that Infocom adventures can output the story script to a printer with the simple command ">script".
Tried it immediately with TNT's incarnation in VICE with a virtual printer as device #4, but it gave an internal error:

Hmmm... wonder if this also happens with the real machine. Will try.

[highinfidelity]

Pretty weird in any case: it shouldn't kick you out of the game, whatever wrong keyword you might have typed in methinks. An emulator glitch, perhaps?

[orion70]

I did some googling, and found reference to "internal errors" in The New Zork Times. Notably, Vol. V, number 2 states that

If an internal error or bad message appears, the disk is probably defective.

and specifically referring to Apple II disks

Internal Error 14 is a specific problem to some of our Apple programs. Although the $VERIFY procedure shows the game to be correct, the error code appears randomly. Our investigation points to a problem in the program's interpreter. We have since reprogrammed the Apple interpreter to correct the problem and will provide you with a replacement disk at no charge should you encounter this particular problem (refer to the previous question).

Maybe it's an issue of the VIC emulator, not dealing correctly with direct access to disk images.