Last modified on 26 February 2010, at 10:02

8bit Printer Port (Amstrad Action)

Revision as of 10:02, 26 February 2010 by Nocash (Talk | contribs) (Description)

External 8bit Printer Port from Amstrad Action Issue 38 (November 1988).

Description

This is a rather bizarre 8bit Printer Port solution. Aside from the 8th data bit, it doesn't come up with any other extras: Data is only one-directional, and only Strobe and Busy control signals are implemented.

Compared with the much older single-wire Happy Computer 8bit Printer Mod (1985), the Amstrad Action approach is terribly overcomplicated. And aside from that it isn't even backwards compatible with normal 7bit printer software.

Technical

Connects to the expansion port.

 Port  Bits   Expl.
 FBF8h N/A    Strobe (W)
 FBF8h Bit0   Busy   (R)
 FBF9h Bit0-7 Data   (W)

Writing any value to port FBF8h issues a short Strobe signal (the length of the signal is same as /IORQ ORed with /WR).

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