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Summary The Aquarius Printer is a 40 column thermal printer that uses a one-way serial connection. It was marketed for the Mattel Aquarius computer and Intellivision's ECS add-on. Its character set is fixed to match the Aquarius computer's character set. Each character is printed as a pattern of 7x10 dots. It has a 3-way switch on the back to control which parts of the Aquarius character set it can print. The switch settings are labelled as Text, Mixed, and Graphics. Contrary to what the Graphics switch setting would typically imply, there is no known way to print arbitrary pixel / bitmap graphics. The printer has a 40 byte buffer for printable characters. When transmitting data, the printer will not print until either the buffer is full, or until a newline or formfeed byte is received. On the front, it has a Power button and a Paper advance button. The Paper advance button does not advance the paper by a fixed amount; instead it advances the paper for as long as the button is pressed. Unlike many printers of its era and later, it does not have a "test mode" that can be entered by pressing and holding a button while simultaneously turning the printer on. While its interface uses standard RS-232 voltages and signaling, its connectors are non-standard, using a 3.5mm mono audio jack and a 2.5mm mono audio jack. An adapter cable is necessary to connect to a computer. Wiring diagrams are available for building adapter cables for connecting to a PC using a 9-pin serial port or to the Intellivision ECS. Software needs to be set to 1200 baud, 8-bit, no parity, 2 stop bits, and use hardware flow control that is either RTS-CTS and/or DTR-DSR hardware flow control depending on the adapter cable's wiring. Internally, it uses the Olivetti PU-1840 print mechanism and thus can use paper from other printers that use the same print mechanism (example: Alphacom Sprinter 40 and VP42). The Olivetti PU-1840 is controlled by a Hitachi HD6801V0P microcontroller. Output Modes Text Mode Only bytes in the ASCII ranges are printable (hexadecimal bytes 20 through 7E) as well as byte 7F. All other bytes do nothing with the following 3 exceptions: 0A, 0D, and 0C. The hexadecimal bytes 0A and 0D are newlines. A pair of these bytes is considered 1 complete newline. Thus 1 complete newline can be any of the following pairs: 0D 0A, 0A 0D, 0A 0A, or 0D 0D. The printer advances the paper one line on the first byte and drops the 2nd byte, as long as the 2nd byte is a 0A or 0D. If other values are inserted between the 2 bytes of a complete newline, the printer will advance the paper 1 newline, print the inserted characters, and then advance the paper a 2nd time (ex: 0D 20 0D). There is an issue where if too many newlines are printed followed immediately by printable data, the printable data is lost. It is presumed that the CTS signal back to the PC is not being processed properly. The hexadecimal byte 0C is formfeed. It advances the paper to next 1 page boundary, with 1 page being approximately 59 lines. Previously printed data is considered part of the page. For example, if 30 lines of printable bytes were sent followed by a 0C, the paper would be advanced 29 lines. There is an issue where if data is transmitted too soon, i.e. before the formfeed has finished, that data may be incorrectly printed in the middle of the formfeed or may be lost. Graphics Mode All characters are printable, based on the Aquarius computer's character set. However, after power up or a short delay between printing sessions, the data needs to be preceded by 0A 0D before the graphics data can be sent. The first 2 bytes of 0A 0D are not printed, but do cause a newline to occur. Any 0A or 0D that appears after the initial 0A 0D pair are printable characters and are not newlines. However, data can NOT be continuously streamed to the printer indefinitely. Somewhere between 880 to 920 bytes, the printer stops responding. It is recommended that long streams of data be separated into smaller chunks with short delays. Mixed Mode The same as Graphics Mode except that 0A and 0D are newlines. These bytes behave the same as they do in Text Mode. Unlike Graphics Mode, there is no need to prepend the printable characters with 0A 0D. There is an issue where, if too many newlines are printed followed immediately by data, the data is lost. It is presumed that the CTS signal back to the PC is not being processed properly or that the printer needs a brief delay after asserting CTS and receiving more bytes. Construction Major components: Hitachi HD6801V0P CPU: Hitachi's version of a Motorola 6801 (enhanced instructions, 4KB ROM and 128 bytes RAM on-chip, serial, GPIO) Olivetti PU-1840 2P Printer mechanism: 280 horizontal dots, thermal paper Hitachi HA17555: a 555 timer chip, presumed to control the baud rate The plastic case has 4 parts: the top shell, bottom shell, paper compartment cover, and the back panel. The back panel contains the serial connectors and the Text/Mixed/Graphics switch. It appears the back panel and the internal space next to it was intended to be replaceable to support other interfaces (Centronics? DE-9 serial? Commodore 64?). The top shell front internally has space for 2 unused punch-outs in the plastic, each with mounting points in an internal metal bracket. Potentially, these could support addition buttons and/or lights. Wiring Adapters / Cables Here are schematics for building either a wiring adapter to connect the Aquarius printer directly to a PC's 9-pin serial port or to the Intellivision ECS. Note that similar schematics elsewhere don't allow a direct connection to a PC since they require additional adapters like null-modem cables. Aquarius Printer Adapter Cables v1.pdf
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So I have my PEB which hasn't been used since the 1990s. It didn't turn on, so I looked inside. My older son tells me it wasn't working years ago, and the fuse we could check (next to the power cord) was OK. So he recalls that I had been thinking I'd probably have to replace the power supply, and was going to try to get one from someone on a BBS (I honestly don't recall that, but it makes sense that I would have thought that, because the fan was probably the only thing working). Anyway, one of us (one of my sons or I) had started to unhook everything, and so I found all the 110v side wires disconnected inside the box. This is 25 years later, so I have no recollection. But in the process today, I also peeled away the plastic and looked inside the transformer, as helpfully described by Mainbyte, and sure enough that hidden fuse was blown. So while I wait for a replacement to arrive, I'm trying to reconnect everything. I also got the schematics that were helpfully posted here. But our hastiness in disconnecting everything and then shelving it 25 years ago has left a big puzzle to solve. My main question is this: There is a fuseholder (holding the fuse that wasn't blown) built into the power cord receptacle, and it has five lugs, and also looks like it can be inserted different ways for different voltages. One lug goes in one end of the fuse, and four are for the other. All were disconnected, as were the wires to the power switch. (Only the fan was still connected via the wire joiners, so I'm good there). There are also three extra wires on the line voltage side of the transformer (black, brown, and orange), but only the whites and reds are shown in the schematic. Were those extra wires supposed to be for the voltage selection feature of the fuseholder, and if so, can I just leave them unconnected and just use the red and white wires like the schematic says? Once I get everything reconnected and solder in the new secret fuse, I'll have to test the power supply board. As bad luck would have it, just before I decided to resurrect the TI, I had recycled about six PC computers accumulated in the 25 years since we put the TI away, and an I also threw out extra ATX power supply. Dang it. I see here that the guts of an ATX power supply might be substituted if the TI power supply board doesn't work. My bad luck, or my poor planning. My wife had finally convinced me I might be suffering from hoarding disorder and I wanted to prove my sanity to her... Should have looked at all the TI stuff first. And she still doubts my sanity because - ... "The TI???? I thought you got rid of that!"
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I received an untested 1050 drive from eBay and found the floppy connections were all disconnected (J1,J6,J10,J11,J12,J14,J15) There are no labels on the connectors themselves to indicate which "J" they should go to and the colors don't match what was shown in the 1050 service manual on page 27. See below the colors associated with my connections. Can anyone post their connector setup if it is similar to the one below?
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I'm trying to restore a Sega Champion Baseball arcade machine, but I'm having some problems. Today's problem is the Sega Champion Baseball board, which arrived today, does not fit the connector inside the cabinet. I'm sure there are more technical terms, but I am a novice when it comes to this stuff and therefore, I do not know how to solve this. At some point someone turned this cabinet into a Ms. Pac-Man machine. In the photo you can see the Ms. Pac-Man board on the right and the Sega Champion Baseball on the left. Notice the big difference in the pinout size. The Sega board does not fit. Any idea what I do from here? -
Hello all, I'd like to begin by saying that I am by no means a negligent/careless owner. I was never rough with my Jag. However, despite this, it stopped working a while back for reasons currently beyond me. The last few times I'd played it, it had serious controller issues; on Cybermorph, the T-Griffon wouldn't stop jetting forward and moving upward, while on Tempest 2K, I couldn't stop shooting. Not long after these incidents, my Jag failed entirely, and won't even power on. All I know is that these consoles are very sensitive to electrical mishaps (shorts, overloads, etc.), and that something to do with the controller inputs failed/shorted out, and this somehow eventually led to total failure. Yet if that is the case, wouldn't that mean that one of my controllers is defective and causes shorts? I've no soldering skills, and even less of a clue on how to find the replacement parts necessary for this system, so the chances of me fixing this are slim. For the meantime, I've purchased a new Jag system (I shouldn't have to explain how expensive they've become), so I want to ensure that this doesn't happen again. The main things I want to know are: *What caused this? *Is this (cheaply) fixable? *What can prevent this? Sorry about the long post, but as a long-time Atari fan, I just want to ensure the fun doesn't stop here. Please feel free to ask me anything you'd like to know.
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Hello there! Working on a home arcade controller that will have compatibility for 2600, 7800 and Colecovision. I've tried looking around but can't find a definitive answer -- how essential are those 620ohm resistors? I'm mostly wondering if they're likely to cause any interruption in function (or other problems) if they are left in the circuit for 2600 and Colecovision operation, or left out? Just want to simplify the number of switches I'm using... the fewer the better. Thanks.
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From the album: INTV
© TJW 2019
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