On Sun, 17 May 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
> > Anyone have any thoughts on how feasible it would be to interface a modern
> > Mac with a Selectric? I love the print quality of my old Selectric. Using
> > it as a printer would be pure heaven.
>
> Firstly, most Selectric typewriters were entirely mechanical for the
> 'data transmission link' from keyboard to typeball, and used the motor as
> a source of power only. The Selectrics that were used as printers
> normally had solenoids fitted (by IBM) on the selector rails inside.
> These were sold by IBM for this purpose (especially as consoles on IBM
> mainframes) - I have the CE manual for one somewhere. So the first job is
> to find one of those, and design an interface from the Mac (serial port?)
> to the solenoids.
Well, the rig I saw had a solenoid driver box that was professionally
manufactured, presumably by IBM as the old man indicated that IBM
furnished the typewriters as printers. I opened up the driver box and saw
some assembly numbers but nothing that said IBM, so I don't know exactly
who manufactured it.
I would imagine that you'd have to build a box that takes data from the
Mac (or for that matter any computer's) serial port and converts it to the
signals that need to be sent to the box.
> Secondly, can a Mac handle a printer with a single fixed font? I normally
> think of Macs as being machines with multiple fonts, and having printers
> that can print arbitrary patterns (dot matrix/laser printers, for
> example). Are there, for example, daisywheel printer drivers for the mac?
I would imagine there would be. Worst case you just send the
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Mon May 18 1998 - 00:07:49 BST