ADA 1600 for Pet?

From: M H Stein <mhstein_at_usa.net>
Date: Fri Oct 12 02:23:08 2001

>Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 14:38:21 -0500
>From: Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com>
>Subject: Re: ADA 1600 for Pet?
>
>Joe wrote:
>>
>> I recently picked up a box called a "ADA 1600 Pet Printer Interface".ki
>> It's a box slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes with two cables
>> attached to it. One cable has a Centronics type connector on it and the
>> other has a small circuit board with both a male and female 24 position
>> card edge connectors on it. Is anyone familar with it or does anyone know
>> which model PET it's for?
>>
>> Joe
>
>I think that's an IEEE (HP-IB) to centronics adapter box. I remember
>the PETS were famous for that IEEE interface for both disk drives and
>printers. The same philosophy continued into the VIC and C=64 lines,
>but in a modified serial format. Typical Commodore, just enough
>different to be a pain . . . .
>
>Gary Hildebrand
>

Tsk, tsk; I would have thought that the SCSI fans would have more appreciation for Commodore's IEEE488 GPIB implementation back in the 70's: less pain than some people on this list have had with SCSI, addressable daisy-chained peripherals, more expensive and less selection just like SCSI, and no problems with termination etc. :-). And they could (and indeed did) talk more or less directly to a lot of high-end lab equipment, especially HP's, although admittedly not quite at the 10Mbps rate of today...

That is indeed what it is, Joe; if you actually want to use it, the DIP switch selects the unit address (usually 4 for a printer) and (if I remember correctly) the CR/LF and all-caps options. Still have a couple in fact, as well as a 1450 serial version; used one for many years to let my 8032 talk to my Centronics 101.

mike
Received on Fri Oct 12 2001 - 02:23:08 BST