Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) I have a Panasonic 1091 printer which was hooked up to my TI for years. For the last 4 years, it has been in storage. It's out now... I bought a set of brand new ribbon cartridges, and I've hooked it up to the TI via the PIO port on the RS232 card. Nice!!! I want to make some disk catalogs for my many many disks I have around here, so I plugged up DM2, CATALOG option, and then selected Solid State Printer. No dice. I then did a custom output device of "PIO" (in case it was referring to the thermal printer). No dice So I typed up a sample BASIC program, then typed "LIST "PIO"". It paused, as it should, acting like it wanted to send, but no dice again. I've reseated the cables and cleaned up the Centronix end... it was a bit dirty. Still no dice. So I checked the TI-side PIO connector and noticed that it can plug in either way (no reference pin or anything). I swapped the orientation and tried again... no dice. The Printer looks to be functioning properly... it registers as ON LINE and it will pull on friction or tractor. I don't really know where else to go on this one. The cable I have for it has been stored neatly rolled up in a sleeve since it's been in storage, so I'm not quite ready to blame the cable. Any thoughts on how to proceed with my troubleshooting efforts? Edited January 23, 2019 by Opry99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Does the printer have a self test? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Does the printer have a self test? It does not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 If I try to print from inside a BASIC program, it kicks out IO ERROR 36 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 It does have a self test... just learned about it in the manual. I will attempt it now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Seems to print nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Multiple tries have yielded similar results... fortunately I have another rs232 card and I will attempt to swap them out and try again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) Shame...Shame...You did a bad thing, plugging the cable in wrongly.I think there is only output to PIO(meaning it is not possible for the printer itself to generate an error)... the attempt to print LIST from BASIC should complete(return cursor) even with RS232 w/o a printer connected. Perhaps you damaged something... or maybe you have a conflict? P.S. what exactly does "no dice" mean? Edited January 23, 2019 by HOME AUTOMATION Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 LIST "PIO" in BASIC locks up the machine until a FCTN+4 is executed... at which point it throws an IO ERROR 36. I have tried another rs233 card with precisely the same results. "No dice" is a phrase from early 20th century when gamblers would be locked up for gambling. If the officers couldn't produce 'dice' during the trial, the judge would throw out the case. More commonly, it is an informal way of expressing an undesired result. In this case, it is a way of saying "This didn't work" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 So I know it isn't my TI, and the chances of the exact same issue existing in two different RS232 cards is slim to none... It has to be an issue with the printer or the cable... unless I am simply missing something entirely. I might try using a program that is designed to print to the PIO port and see what it does. Need to find that program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Console Writer 2.1 (with PIO. selected as the output printer) also yielded the same results. It locks up (like it is sending data to the printer) and doesn't move until you FCTN+4 out of it. I don't understand. Is it waiting for a "RECEIVED" signal from the printer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Did you feed it today??? paper feed switch... maybe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Anyone have a TI PIO-->Centronics cable they want to get rid of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) Did you feed it today??? paper feed switch... maybe... I'll take some pictures here in a moment. But it does print very nicely in Test mode... so I think it's okay in that regard. Edited January 23, 2019 by Opry99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Here are some photos. Next is going to be a meter test of the pins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 I should have kept my Gorilla Banana or 24 pin(I think it was a Pana. too) or at least one of the dot matrix printers. I really liked the way the HP Deskjet worked with the TI... left them all behind... Big mistake. Sorry If this isn't helping... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoodland Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) The red stripe of the ribbon cable usually denotes pin 1. I know that there are different cables for different printers. They are not interchangeable. They have different wiring configurations. Are you sure your cable is wired for a panasonic? Are the dip switches set correctly on your KX-P1091? Do they match the port PIO configuration? Edited January 23, 2019 by twoodland 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 Indeed, I have double checked all dipswitches and am currently figuring out the pin outs of my exact cable. Everything looks to be in good order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChildOfCv Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 (edited) The cable pictured does not wire any of the status returns from the printer. How would the host computer even know if the printer is listening? The pins I see are: 1 - Strobe 2-9 - Data 11 - Busy (well, okay there's ONE printer status line) 16 - Signal ground 17 - Shield (but it doesn't seem to go to shield?) 19-29 - Signal ground (30 does not seem to be connected. Also, I assume there's a wire on the bottom that runs to all of those pins, but it's hard to tell). So the only thing I see that could make it "wait" for output to the printer is if it sees the BUSY pin as active (low). Or if it expects the printer to acknowledge selection or data received, which will never happen with that cable. So, which pin is pin 11 on the Centronics connected to? SPARE IN or HANDSHAKE IN? Even further reading: http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/rs232c.htm#PIOSample This seems to indicate that the printer's acknowledge pin (10 on the centronics side) needs to be connected to HANDSHAKE IN. Pin 10 in that picture looks like a virgin pin, never even touched by solder. Edited January 24, 2019 by ChildOfCv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 All of those things you mentioned are exactly true. There are no connections on the bottom row of pins, the grounds are jumpered out Based on what you're saying, I could have an issue with pin 11 on the Centronics side, since that's the only line that could possibly cause this behavior on the TI side... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 I need to check which pin on the TI side is connected to pin 11 on the Centronics connector.... let me do that next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 Pin 13 (TI) is tied into pin 11 (Centronics) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 Pin 12 (TI) goes to pin 8 (Centronics) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 I've seen 3 different pinout wiring diagrams now, and none of them are the same.... mostly similar, but none the same. And none match my cable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 Here's one that doesn't match my configuration. (Close, but no cigar) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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