Atari 850 Interface

[toddtmw]

So, I got an Atari 850 Interface off of eBay. It lights up, but I've never used one before.

I'm trying to print to a Panasonic KX-P1091 that powers up and prints the test lines of text when you turn it on with the button pressed.

Then, I bought a DB15 extension cable and a DB25 to Parallel cable and then used breadboard jumpers with the male pins bent at the tip so they get friction inside the female side of the DB15 cable and forced the female sides down over the pins on the male side of the DB25 end of the printer cable.

I used this pinout for the female cable (My logic is that this should be exactly like the female port on the 850 interface):

850 Printer Port (15-pin female connector):
                     1. ~Data Strobe
                     2. Data bit 0
                     3. Data bit 1
8               1   4. Data bit 2
  o o o o o o o o    5. Data bit 3
   o o o o o o o     6. Data bit 4
15             9    7. Data bit 5
                     8. Data bit 6
                     9. Data pins pull-up (+5v)
                     11. Signal ground
                     12. ~Fault (Must be +5 for printer port to operate)
                     13. Busy
                     15. Data bit 7

And ran them to the equivalent (I think) correct pin on the DB25 that corresponds to this:

36-pin Centronics (male)  |     DB15P (850 Interface)
                1                         1 - Data Strobe
                2                         2 - D0
                3                         3 - D1
                4                         4 - D2
                5                         5 - D3
                6                         6 - D4
                7                         7 - D5
                8                         8 - D6
               16                        11 - Gnd
               32                        12 - Fault
               11                        13 - Busy
                9                        15 - D7

Using the translation on this web page:

https://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/parallel.html

(Using the parallel printer cable table in the second section.)

 

Of course, when I hook it all up, it doesn't print. (I'm using Print Shop test page telling it I have Panasonic to test).

 

So, do I need to do something special to get the 850 interface to work with Atari? Or does it just work when you plug it in?

 

I mean, basically, I don't know if the 850 is bad, the printer is bad or the cable is bad. (I suspect it is the cable given the way I jury-rigged it together...)

 

Any thoughts or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DavidMil]

When you boot the computer do you hear a one second peep before the computer boots to a screen?

 

[sup8pdct]

to test if something is working with 850, turn off everything, turn on 850 then turn on computer, no disk drives , sio2sd etc devices powered on.

You should hear after a few command frame failes, 2 or sector size beeps then a big long beep. If not,something is wrong. If it does,problem lays elsewhere.

That sound is the rs232 driver loading in to computer from 850. It can also be loaded from dos via a small program stored on disk.

The rs232 driver is not required for the printer port.

 

James

[thorfdbg]

So, do I need to do something special to get the 850 interface to work with Atari? Or does it just work when you plug it in?

 

For printing, no. It is just plug-and-play. For the serial interface, it requires a small bootstrap loader.

[toddtmw]

It does beep if I do not have any drives connected. In that configuration, if I type LPRINT "HELLO" I get an error 138 even though gah printer is on. I'll assume my jury-rigged cord is to blame. The documentation on what goes where is difficult because it's not always clear whether I am looking at a diagram of the cord or the port. Plus I'm translating from 15-pin to 25-pin to centronics so there are three chances to get it wrong.

[BillC]

The most likely issue is that either ground or the Fault/Error signal isn't connected, below is a table showing the connections from the 850 DA15 port to the DB25 or Centronics34 connectors used for parallel printers. All other signals connect to the same pin number on both DB25 and Centronics34 connectors.

 

If you are connecting to a PC printer cable check that the pin you using for the ground does go through to the other connector. There are 8 pins defined as ground for the DB25 and 15 for the Centronics34, they might not all be connected.

 

As shown in your first post, the 850 must receive a +5V signal on pin 12(Fault) for the printer port to operate, this signal is on pin 15 of the DB25 and pin 32 of the Centronics34.

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by BillC

[iratasan]

The most likely issue is that either ground or the Fault/Error signal isn't connected, below is a table showing the connections from the 850 DA15 port to the DB25 or Centronics34 connectors used for parallel printers. All other signals connect to the same pin number on both DB25 and Centronics34 connectors.

 

If you are connecting to a PC printer cable check that the pin you using for the ground does go through to the other connector. There are 8 pins defined as ground for the DB25 and 15 for the Centronics34, they might not all be connected.

 

As shown in your first post, the 850 must receive a +5V signal on pin 12(Fault) for the printer port to operate, this signal is on pin 15 of the DB25 and pin 32 of the Centronics34.

 

850_printer_port.jpg

Hello BillC, just one question... why are we talking about a "Centronics 34" ? Isn't the Centronics a 36 pins connector as standard?

[Gavin1968]

On 1/24/2019 at 9:56 AM, iratasan said:

Isn't the Centronics a 36 pins connector as standard?

Yes it is, not sure why everyone keeps referring to a Centronics 34.  

[José Antonio]

On 7/26/2017 at 1:11 AM, BillC said:

The most likely issue is that either ground or the Fault/Error signal isn't connected, below is a table showing the connections from the 850 DA15 port to the DB25 or Centronics34 connectors used for parallel printers. All other signals connect to the same pin number on both DB25 and Centronics34 connectors.

 

If you are connecting to a PC printer cable check that the pin you using for the ground does go through to the other connector. There are 8 pins defined as ground for the DB25 and 15 for the Centronics34, they might not all be connected.

 

As shown in your first post, the 850 must receive a +5V signal on pin 12(Fault) for the printer port to operate, this signal is on pin 15 of the DB25 and pin 32 of the Centronics34.

 

Thank you very much, recently I also bought an Atari 850 Interface that I wanted to connect to a printer via parallel port, but I didn't know how to build the cable, thanks to this diagram I was able to do it and the printer works perfectly.