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IBM PC Compact Printer

You are kidding, right?

First, it is not a dot matrix printer. It is a thermal printer.

Second, you should keep in mind that you are criticizing the output of a 25+ year old thermal printer, and the paper is probably just as old. These printers used friction feed; the parts of the printer are old now and the friction feed mechanism is probably not working perfectly anymore. The paper is positively ancient - thermal paper does not age well, so being aghast at the non-uniform text contrast doesn't make sense.

I think the print of the RLE is actually pretty good considering the age of the unit.

It uses standard Epson codes. Your concerns about not having drivers are not warranted. (I wrote the simple program that printed that RLE.)
 
I haven't had time to scan the manual yet, but from the full list of escape/control sequences, it appears that this printer can do the following:


  • double-width text
  • condensed text
  • set vertical (?) and horizontal tabs, number of lines per page
  • 480-bit graphics mode (82.5 DPI)
  • underline
  • ASCII 3-175 and 224-254 seem represented; line-drawing characters are absent

Allowed combinations of features:


  • normal
  • underline
  • compressed+underline
  • doublewidth+underline
  • compressed+doublewidth
  • compressed+doublewidth (??) +underline
 
In defense of the little printer, it is great for printing banners (no perferations), albeit slow. And since I can't use my favorite online help system on a PCjr (scancode handling doesn't work), I print out what I need and keep it next to me.

It's very slow, yes. But it cost $175 retail in 1983 which was among the very cheapest printers you could buy, so I think there was an expectation of what you were getting.
 
I confess I was a little slow here. I just didn't get the Epson printer control codes are to PC printers as the Hayes Command Set is to PC modems analogy the first time. I also acknowledge that we aren't seeing the device at its best. Does anyone know where compatible thermal paper rolls can be found for the machine?
 
Unless I'm misremembering the 1980s, my thermal paper rolls looks an awful lot like fax paper rolls. A search for "thermal fax paper" turns up a lot of suitable candidates.
 
Would you believe it? I just bought a ton of C64/128 stuff at a garage sale and this very printer was in the box. It was sold as having 2 Commodore compatible printers; This one, and a Commodore one. I also found some printer cable that says "big Blue" something or other on it, so I assume it allows the C128 to print to PC printers. I just wonder how they adapted it to interface with this printer, since it has the PCjr type plugs. I didn't look at it too closely yet.
 
Having acquired one of these, even though the case was badly damaged and the paper feed button does not seem to respond, the printer itself is still going quite strong. Sure the print quality leaves something to be desired, and the letting is not particularly uniform on the included, probably 20-years old, paper, but it hasn't jammed, the print is not crooked, its quiet and not too slow for quick prints.

I am using DOS 3.3, and since I have a parallel port sidecar and the internal modem installed, my printer shows up as COM2. For print.com, it will ask for the name of the printing device. Dir > COM2 works to print a directory listing.

One thing I have noticed is that when printing a text file, sometimes the printer will lose a character or a space. Is there any way to correct this?
 
Hey @mbbrutman - which emulation does this printer use? I can't find it noted anywhere. Or, what are some equivalent printers to use that use the same emulation?
 
mbbrutman said:
It's mostly Epson ESC/P. You can find out more at http://www.brutman.com/PCjr/pc_compact_printer.html.

Also check https://www.brutman.com/jpg2prn/jpg2prn.html for code that let's you print JPGs on the printer.
Click to expand...

I saw your site! I just didn't see the specific emulation listed there. Great job with the BASIC program!!

I found the manual here: https://ibm.retropc.se/oa/OA - IBM PC Compact Printer.pdf

And ESC/P format here: https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/general/escp2ref.pdf

I was, for kicks and grins, going to try it on a Windows system just to say that I did it. I've tried the IBM FX (80 and 132) pin drivers and several other odd drivers with no luck - it just prints garbage.

I do notice in its manual (by talking to it via PuTTY), that I can also directly send stuff to it at 1200 baud.
 
Remember, I said "mostly Epson ESC/P" ... it has a 560 bits per line mode, not the usual 480 bits per line mode. It does not have a 960 bits per line mode. The line spacing commands in graphics mode are also not the same. And the aspect ratio is different from a standard ESP/P printer.
 
So, we would have to create a pseudo ESC/P driver or code for the specific escape codes for this printer then, got it. 😉. Regardless, it’s an amazing little printer! Thank you for the additional information!

I did replace the RIFA caps in the PSU in mine just to be safe.
 
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