Re: Cannot Load Printer

["mike shupp" mikeshupp@xxxxxxxx]

Interestingly, the trend is in the opposite direction. In Olden
Dayes (1990 or so), electrons basically flowed one way down the
printer cable-- you could give commands to the printer (and data,
of course) but you couldn't get feedback, resulting in numerous
amusing incidents in which printers happily continued splattering
ink on out-of-paper platens, or despite broken ribbons, etc.

These days, we expect even el cheapo printer types to monitor
the depth of ink reservoirs, paper supply, etc. As a result,
the old parallel port interface definition has been superceded,
and hardware and software revamped, to permit signals to go in
both directions. Which means additional logic circuitry has to
be in the printer (and in the motherboard or printer card). The
modern printer is actually "brainier" than its neolithic predecessors.




----Original Message Follows----
From: Robert Holmgren 
Reply-To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
To: xywrite 
Subject: Re: Cannot Load Printer
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:26:31 -0400

....  Well, let us know what you do, or what the solution is. I'm curious
-- this is
a new area for me. If an entirely brainless gadget is at the other end of
an

LPT: port, it seems pretty useless to me. Or else we're into a new realm.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------





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