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LP11 Printer Interface

NF6X

NF6X

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Sep 9, 2013
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Location
Riverside, CA, USA
If I had an M7258 LP11 line printer interface board for my PDP-11/44, what options might I have to get it to drive a commonly available printer?

I presume that the LP11 board is what the line printer device under RT-11 expects to talk to; please clue me in if I'm mistaken. It would be nice if I could interface some sort of commonly available printer to my PDP-11/44 project, even if I had to build an adapter to translate the LP11's protocol to something else. I wonder if this has been done before?
 
Precisely. I also found another thread with the same LP11-Centronics cable info a while ago this afternoon. Looks very do-able!
 
NF6X said:
If I had an M7258 LP11 line printer interface board for my PDP-11/44, what options might I have to get it to drive a commonly available printer?
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Are you trying to find one? I have one in my 11/84 with the nice blue cable. I doubt I will ever have an LP-11 or anything to connect to it.
 
NF6X said:
There is one on eBay for $35, but I doubt that it includes a nice blue cable. Maybe you would like to trade yours for something?
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I can't think of anything I'd want to put into my 11/84 that
is not already there. It has a UDA50 and a UC17. Full memory. Do you really have a printer that can work with it?
 
I don't have a printer that was designed to work with it, like an original DEC printer. I plan to build an adapter cable to plug it into a plain old Centronics-style parallel printer, of which I have a few. If your board has an original cable to connect it to a particular DEC line printer, then it would be a better match for somebody who can mate it up with an original printer. So, I guess I'll just get the interface card on eBay if you're not strongly motivated to get rid of your LP11 card?

I think it would be pretty cool to have an original matching DEC drum printer to go with my system, but it's not practical for me to put one of those magnificent beasts in the small room where I plan to house the PDP-11/44. I think it might fall through the floor!
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention: I don't even have my system powered up yet. I'm just hoovering up interesting accessories for it as I find them so that I can give it a nice, full configuration. I'm getting close to having the critical mass of hardware to start bolting things together and doing my early pre-power-up inspections, vacuuming out dead leaves, and so forth. I haven't done really detailed inspection of the chassis (I have four incomplete chassis to mix and match pieces from) because I'm planning to start that once I have the chassis hanging in my rack on those cool pivoting slides for easy access to the top and bottom. I think that should be pretty soon. I'm still missing the rear mounting brackets for the slides, so I'll need to buy or make them. I'll plan to do some work on the rack this weekend.
 
NF6X said:
Oh, and I forgot to mention: I don't even have my system powered up yet. I'm just hoovering up interesting accessories for it as I find them so that I can give it a nice, full configuration. I'm getting close to having the critical mass of hardware to start bolting things together and doing my early pre-power-up inspections, vacuuming out dead leaves, and so forth. I haven't done really detailed inspection of the chassis (I have four incomplete chassis to mix and match pieces from) because I'm planning to start that once I have the chassis hanging in my rack on those cool pivoting slides for easy access to the top and bottom. I think that should be pretty soon. I'm still missing the rear mounting brackets for the slides, so I'll need to buy or make them. I'll plan to do some work on the rack this weekend.
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Ok, I do wish I had the mounting rack rails for my 11/84. It has the pieces that are attached to the box with the pivot, but I
do not nor have I ever seen the rails that go with it. I used to have a boat load of RL02 rails. And RL02 drives. When I moved Lou took quite a bit of my
stuff. My basement was chock full of spare parts. Needless to say I only have the 11/84 now with a few terminals and test equipment. Someday some
bigger iron will arrive on my doorstep I hope.
 
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