printer roms (dmp-2000 etc)

[arnoldemu]

I have the rom from the dmp-1. I plan to dump it and upload a dissassembly of it (I believe it will be a mixture of 8039 cpu instructions and data for the font).

Does anyone have dumps of the dmp-2000 or other printer roms?

[nocash]

Yes, please. Good idea. I don't own DMP's myself so I can't help there.
The ROM character sets (and eventually also the machine code) might of some use (if somebody wants to emulate the exact printer-feeling).

Scanned Manuals for DMP printers would be great, too. As far as I know there's very little info on the control codes (eg. for bitmap printing, or bold text, etc). And differences between models like DMP2000 and DMP2160 are still unknown (?) too.

Oh, and can somebody confirm that the DMP2000 is a rebadged Riteman+ printer? cpcwiki states that similarities are "striking" - does that refer to internal components? Externally they are looking entirely DIFFERENT (externally, the  Riteman+ does more resemble a DMP3000, not a DMP2000). So, I guess the "strinking" info should be moved to the DMP3000 page?

[Devilmarkus]

Yes, please. Good idea. I don't own DMP's myself so I can't help there.
The ROM character sets (and eventually also the machine code) might of some use (if somebody wants to emulate the exact printer-feeling).

I'm working on DMP printer emulation.
So the chars and ALL technical informations (like DPI, how many dot's per line/page etc...) would come handy!
Here's a first attempt:
http://cpc-live.com/hardcopy

[Cpcmaniaco]

Perhaps you can find good info on this kind of Software :

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Qualitas_Plus

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Pro-Ext

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ProPrint

Prabably Qualitas is the best option.

[nocash]

> Prabably Qualitas is the best option.

Dunno... the qualitas manual doesn't seem to contain too useful info.
Best source should be the original DMPnnnn User manuals.
Back in the eighties that manuals usually contained good programming specs (so you could write your own printer "driver").

One thing that is common for all printers in chr(13)=CR and chr(10)=LF, or eventually chr(13)=CR+LF. The more interesting info would be how to do italics/bold/bitmap/etc. Should be often done by ESCape codes, eg. stuff like chr(27),"K2" or chr(27),"Y12".

That whole stuff should be described in the User Manuals - does somebody have DMP manual(s) at home?

---

For ROM dumps... The photo of the DMP1 PCB looks quite inviting: a 24pin EPROM with socket. Basically, one would need to remove the EPROM, stick it into a 28pin CPC ROM board or so, and use a paper-clip to pass VCC from pin28 to pin24, and then one could save the ROM image on 3" floppy disc.

Does somebody have all that equipment at home? If yes, let me know if you need more info on what to do exactly.

---

Btw. did anybody ever see or hear of a Amstrad DMP2100 printer? It's listed on the cpcwiki Peripherals page, but I couldn't find ANY info/photos/manuals about that model in the internet - I'd doubt that it does exist, or does it?

[nocash]

I've found a few manuals in pdf (and put them on cpcwiki).

English Manuals:
  DMP1 User Manual (english)
  DMP2000/3000/4000 Service Manual (english)
The DMP1 manual contains programming info (and it's quite simple, not too many/complicated functions). Service manual is more for repair purposes (no programming info in there).

For the DMP2000...4000 there don't seem to be any english user manuals (please scan them!)

I've only found some French ones:
  DMP2000 Users Manual
  DMP2160 Users Manual
  DMP3000/3160/3250di Users Manual
Plus, some spanish ones were already on cpcwiki.

[Ygdrazil]

The DMP2100 did exist :-)

/Ygdrazil

> Prabably Qualitas is the best option.

Dunno... the qualitas manual doesn't seem to contain too useful info.
Best source should be the original DMPnnnn User manuals.
Back in the eighties that manuals usually contained good programming specs (so you could write your own printer "driver").

One thing that is common for all printers in chr(13)=CR and chr(10)=LF, or eventually chr(13)=CR+LF. The more interesting info would be how to do italics/bold/bitmap/etc. Should be often done by ESCape codes, eg. stuff like chr(27),"K2" or chr(27),"Y12".

That whole stuff should be described in the User Manuals - does somebody have DMP manual(s) at home?

---

For ROM dumps... The photo of the DMP1 PCB looks quite inviting: a 24pin EPROM with socket. Basically, one would need to remove the EPROM, stick it into a 28pin CPC ROM board or so, and use a paper-clip to pass VCC from pin28 to pin24, and then one could save the ROM image on 3" floppy disc.

Does somebody have all that equipment at home? If yes, let me know if you need more info on what to do exactly.

---

Btw. did anybody ever see or hear of a Amstrad DMP2100 printer? It's listed on the cpcwiki Peripherals page, but I couldn't find ANY info/photos/manuals about that model in the internet - I'd doubt that it does exist, or does it?

[arnoldemu]

For ROM dumps... The photo of the DMP1 PCB looks quite inviting: a 24pin EPROM with socket. Basically, one would need to remove the EPROM, stick it into a 28pin CPC ROM board or so, and use a paper-clip to pass VCC from pin28 to pin24, and then one could save the ROM image on 3" floppy disc.

Does somebody have all that equipment at home? If yes, let me know if you need more info on what to do exactly.

I have the rom.
I have an Amram 2.
So I can read it easily, now I need to find some time.
The dmp-1 on the wiki is my old one before I dumped it (and saved a few small things from it )

[nocash]

> The DMP2100 did exist :-)
Whoops, I didn't believe in it - are you sure?
I know that there's a TRS-80 printer with that name, but I thought that it isn't from Amstrad.

From Amstrad, the DMP2160 is their "fast" printer with 160 chars/second (hence DMP2160).
And their "slow" printer with 100 chars/sec (or actually 105 chars/sec)...
following the same naming method, it should be called DMP2100, but they called it DMP2000.
So then - what the hell is a dmp2100 ?
Until today, I thought I'd have understood the DMP-numbering, now I am confused about it :-)

---

Any info if the various Amstrad/Schneider printers are pin-printers or uni-hammer ones?

[Terje_Norway]

Hi,
Amstrad did make a lot of printers back in the old days, those were the days when Amstrad was a growing and successful company   


In my opinion the trouble started when they entered the PC scene. The PC1512 and PC1640 was a success, but the PCs that followed these wasn't to much to brag about. The Amstrad PC2000 series was the last to be launched in Norway, since "Amstrad Norge AS" failed back in 1989 


OK, back to the Amstrad printers. These were labeled as DMP (Dot Matrix Printer) and LQ (Letter Quality).

I've had a look trough my Amstrad archives, and I have found the following manuals and service manual :


- Amstrad DMP3000/3160 (English) 100 pages
- Schneider DMP2160 (German) 88 pages
- Schneider DMP3160 (German) 96 pages (Copy)


- Amstrad DMP2000 Printer Service manual (English) 12 pages
- Amstrad DMP2000 / DMP3000 /DMP4000 Printer Service Manual (English) 20 pages
- Amstrad LQ5000 di Printer Service Manual (English) 18 pages
- Schneider LQ3500 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP2000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP2160 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP3000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP4000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider NLQ 401 Service Manual (German)


I have also found the following Amstrad leaflets from those days :


- Amstrad CPC6128 (Norwegian) 4 pages
- Amstrad PCW8256 (Danish) 4 pages
- Amstrad PPC (Norwegian) 4 pages
- Amstrad PC1640 (Norwegian) 8 pages
- Amstrad PC2000 (Norwegian) 8 pages


"The Amstrad DMP4000 & DMP3250 di Printers" (English) 4 pages
"The Amstrad LQ3500 di & LQ5000 di Printers" (English) 4 pages
"AMSPRINT" (Norwegian) 4 pages 
(Specifications for the following printers : DMP3160, DMP2150 di, DMP4000, LQ3500, LQ3500 di & LQ5000 di)


This has to be it for this time. 


Yours


Terje Grind
NORWAY

[ivarf]

Hi,
Amstrad did make a lot of printers back in the old days, those were the days when Amstrad was a growing and successful company   


In my opinion the trouble started when they entered the PC scene. The PC1512 and PC1640 was a success, but the PCs that followed these wasn't to much to brag about. The Amstrad PC2000 series was the last to be launched in Norway, since "Amstrad Norge AS" failed back in 1989


OK, back to the Amstrad printers. These were labeled as DMP (Dot Matrix Printer) and LQ (Letter Quality).

I've had a look trough my Amstrad archives, and I have found the following manuals and service manual :

long list ...
...

...


This has to be it for this time.

Terje
NORWAY

Hi Terje,
so much good stuff! 










































I know where he live and are wondering and whether he has changed his burglaralarmcode 

[Terje_Norway]

Hi Ivar 


Why change the burglaralarmcode, as no one would guess it is "6128".
 
Besides, what are the chances You would come by ? ? ? 


Terje Grind
NORWAY

[Devilmarkus]

Hi Terje,
that's great to read.
Did you scan them?
For the Wiki all of your listed manuals and guides are usful.

(For my development I need the user guides for the printer DMP 2xxx.)
I can use English or German docs.

Would be great if you could scan and create PDF of them.

Cheers,
Markus

[Terje_Norway]

Hi Markus,


I haven't scanned any of them so fare, but I'll have a look at it ! ! !


The ONLY problem is that my PC isn't talking all to well with my scanner. I have tried to scan a few manuals earlier, but the result hasn't been that good. I'll have a look at it tomorrow, and perhaps things will turn out better (as it can't be much worse) 


I'll start with the DMP2xxx manual (s), and we'll see what the result will be.


Yours


Terje Grind
NORWAY

[nocash]

Great collection of manuals - would be great if you could get them scanned!

Does somebody have the NLQ401 User Manual? (Terje seems to have only the Service Manual). As far as I understand, the DMP1 and NLQ401 are Seikosha Models, the DMP1 sold everywhere except in germany - and the NLQ401 being a slightly improved version which was sold only in germany (?)

I've started some summary of the different printer models here,
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Amstrad_Printers
Some better photos would be nice! Best, top-view, and eventually also other from perspectives.

And photos of the printer mainboards would be nice, too. Maybe that reveal relationship to Seikosha & Epson models.

[Ynot.zer0]

I have these two manuals - I could look at scanning the DMP2160 version this weekend.... (if it's not too sunny outside)

[nocash]

DMP2000 & DMP2160 User Instructions would be great! But sunny weekend would be better. Anyways, I hope you get around to scan them once or then. Terje doesn't seem to have that two manuals. DMP2000 would be most interesting since it's the first in the DMPxxxx series (so it should contain the "minimum" specs).

---

Terje has got his scanner working, following are now on cpcwiki:
Printer user/service manuals:
Schneider DMP3160 User Manual (German) 100 pages
Schneider DMP2000 Service Manual (German with English)
Printer Leaflets:
  "The Amstrad DMP4000 & DMP3250 di Printers" (English) 4 pages
  "The Amstrad LQ3500 di & LQ5000 di Printers" (English) 4 pages
  "AMSTPRINT" Leaflet DMP3160, DMP3250di, DMP4000, LQ3500, LQ3500di, LQ5000di) (Norwegian) 4 pages
Computer Leaflets:
  Amstrad CPC6128 (Norwegian) 4 pages
  Amstrad PCW8256 (Danish) 4 pages
  Amstrad PPC (Norwegian) 4 pages
  Amstrad PC1640 (Norwegian) 8 pages
  Amstrad PC2000 (Norwegian) 8 pages
The printer related docs are found on http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Amstrad_Printers, the other computer leaflets on http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Amstrad_Leaflets - some are a bit old-fashioned now - the PPC one includes an adventureous photo story - imagine you have a portable PC, work in a first class railway waggon, and finally you are presenting your work to your senior boss!

EDIT: These two docs from Terje's list were already on cpcwiki (no need to scan them again):
- Amstrad DMP2000 / DMP3000 /DMP4000 Printer Service Manual (English) 20 pages
- Schneider DMP2160 Service Manual (German)
EDIT:EDIT: swapped the 2160 user <--> service manual entries

Other docs on Terje's list (which I hope will be scanned soon):
- Amstrad DMP3000/3160 (English) 100 pages
- Schneider DMP2160 (German) 88 pages
- Amstrad LQ5000 di Printer Service Manual (English) 18 pages
- Schneider LQ3500 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP2000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP3000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider DMP4000 Service Manual (German)
- Schneider NLQ 401 Service Manual (German)

----

Does somebody have the NLQ401 User Manual? It seems to be the most exotic model as it seems to have been available only in germany.

[nocash]

The first printer ROM is dumped! Nilquader has dumped to NLQ401 EPROM :-) found on the http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Amstrad_Printers page. The bad news is that that printer seems to contain additional 4K ROM (inside of the CPU chip) which is probably harder to get by. At first glance, I can't see character set tables in the EPROM, though they should be there - can somebody decipher them?

Nilquader has also taken nice pics of the NLQ401 PCB (fount at http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/NLQ401), and he can scan the german NLQ401 user manual (in next some weeks when he gets access to a good scanner). Oh, and he asked for a NLQ401 Service Manual - Terje, how about scanning some small service manuals? Hope you aren't burnt out after your recent big scanning session!

[Terje_Norway]

Hi folks 


I scanned two more German service manual.


- LQ3500 Service Manual (16 pages)
- NLQ 401 Service Manual (22 pages)


I'll mail them to Martin within a few minutes 


Only FOUR more Service manuals left:


- Schneider DMP2160 (12 EASY pages)
- Schneider DMP3000 (12 EASY pages)
- Schneider DMP4000 (14 FLIP pages)
- Amstrad LQ5000di (26 FLIP pages)


I'll scan them within a few days.


Yours


Terje Grind
Norway


PS I haven't forgotten the DMP user manuals.

[nocash]

Beautiful scans! Just forwarded them to the NLQ401/LQ3500 cpcwiki pages. The NLQ401 manual even includes... tatatam... packaging instructions!

Just noticed that the DMP1's CPU seems to contain on-chip ROM, too. Though I wonder if that ROMs were really used. If there is an EPROM, then it should be cheaper to put all code/data into it (as than to produce CPUs with custom ROM).

The 2Kx8 SRAM on the DMP1 board is confusing me. According to the DMP1 manual, it has only a small 90-byte printer buffer (apparently using the CPU's on-chip 128 byte RAM). But then... why the 2Kx8 SRAM? Maybe it was an expanded "DMP1+" version? Or the manual was wrong... I think I've read somewhere that the Amstrad manuals were printed before the hardware design was finished.
EDIT: Ignore that - The DMP1 manual doesn't say anything about a 90-byte limit - I must have picked up that info from the Commodore MPS801 manual (the commodore & atari versions don't have the 2K chips).

[arnoldemu]

Beautiful scans! Just forwarded them to the NLQ401/LQ3500 cpcwiki pages. The NLQ401 manual even includes... tatatam... packaging instructions!

Just noticed that the DMP1's CPU seems to contain on-chip ROM, too. Though I wonder if that ROMs were really used. If there is an EPROM, then it should be cheaper to put all code/data into it (as than to produce CPUs with custom ROM).

I disagree. It uses an 8039 and in the datasheet it says the 8039 uses external rom only. (no rom of it's own)

[nocash]

Whoops, thanks for correcting! I only looked at list of features in the datasheet (which looked as if ROM would be in all versions). But the text section makes it clear that on-chip ROM/EPROM is only in uPD8049 chips, not in the DMP1's uPD8039 chip.

The NLQ401 might use on-chip ROM in its uPD7811 CPU. Here, the ROM-less version would be uPD7810.

[nocash]

> Only FOUR more Service manuals left:
> Schneider DMP2160 (12 EASY pages)
No need, not that one! That's already scanned (by somebody else).
In the message above, I did have had accidently listed it as still missing (sorry/confusion).

[Terje_Norway]

Hi,


Guess who hasn't got anything better to do on a Friday evening ? ? 


YES, almost all of You guessed right.  Only TWO persons with the wrong answer 


I have now scanned the last FOUR service manuals, and mailed them to Martin. They'll probably be up on the net tomorrow.


They are as follows :

- Schneider DMP2160 (12 pages)
- Schneider DMP3000 (12 pages)
- Schneider DMP4000 (14 pages)
- Amstrad LQ5000di (26 pages)



NO, I didn't forget that the DMP2160 is on the net already. I discovered it AFTER I had scanned it, besides I think my scan is a bit better that the one already on the net. Page 8-9 is a bit better on my scan (I think) than the one already uploaded. These two pages are flip pages, and the drawing is on both pages. It's up to Martin if he replaces it ? ? ?


Now I'm only down to the two user manuals. Only 188 lovely ( )  pages left to scan 

That's it for tonight


Yours


Terje Grind
Norway

[nocash]

Great. I've just put them (all four) on cpcwiki. The printer Service Manual section is now fairly complete. Only some are still missing, including the good old DMP1:
  DMP1 Service Manual
  DMP3160 Service Manual
  DMP3250di Service Manual
  LQ3500di Service Manual (only the "di" version is missing)
  LD6000 Service Manual
Does somebody has one of them at home?