Looking for a printer solution

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

I am thinking of connecting a printer to my 1200XL. A long time ago I used to have a 1027 but I read somewhere here to avoid buying one of those today since the printer head tends to come apart during use. Which printer should I look for and where?

 

I searched for "printer" in this forum and got well over 4200 results but a lot of them came from topics relating to 3d printing.

 

Thanks!

Edited February 17, 2021 by 1200XL M.U.L.E.

[+skr]

34 minutes ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

I am thinking of connecting a printer to my 1200XL. A long time ago I used to have a 1027 but I read somewhere here to avoid buying one of those today since the printer head tends to come apart during use. Which printer should I look for and where?

 

I searched for "printer" in this forum and got well over 4200 results but a lot of them came from topics relating to 3d printing.

 

Thanks!

I have an Atari XMM801 which works fine and ribbons are available still (but you have to cut off some small noses). With a printer adapter (e.g. "MicroPrint") you can connect a wide variety of dot matrix printers. Should be easy to find in the Internet. I have two or three Star LC-10 printers AND adaptors here and could sell you one for a fair price, but depending on where you live might get crazy expensive...

[+bob1200xl]

You can hook up Atari printers, notably the 1025, if you just want simple listings and such. The 1025 does not have reliability issues like the 1027 or 1020 and it hooks directly to you Atari on SIO. The 825 is nice, but you need an 850 interface. The other Atari printers, 820 and 822 are a little quirky or require special handling.

 

If you get a Centronics  interface adapter, you can hook up any number of dot-matrix or laser printers. I have an HP LJ4050 on my everyday system. Be aware that many interface adapters do not necessarily work on a 1200XL, which can be fixed with a little soldering.

 

What are you going to print?

 

Bob

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Thank you for your replies!

 

@skr I am in the US and you are in Germany, I think. Yes, shipping will probably be more than the cost of the printer itself.

 

@bob1200xl I was hoping to print my text based journals, code samples, and some financial statistics. Plots and charts would be nice but not a must-have. What is the soldering job you are referring to?

 

I searched for "atari centronics" and nothing active in the US came up either. A few international sellers are selling interface boxes and they are too expensive for me, especially with shipping added in. I suppose an 850 box would work just as well here. Then I could use any "modern" printer, yes?

 

I'm feeling a pull toward a XMM801 and 1025 printer that gives a direct connection but no active listings on eBay came up. Are ribbons still available for these?

 

[Atari8guy]

Have you considered a Fujinet? Prints PDF to your PC wirelessly. Just a thought.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gilsaluki]

My gosh, the supply of printers that will operate with the Atari8 is almost limitless.  With a printer interface (850, PR Connection, etc, etc, etc) that can be had real cheap now you can hook up almost any parallel printer.  Star Printers, Epson printers, Panasonic printers.  I have 4 or 5 printers connected.  Alphacom 42 (thermal for listing), XDM-121 (letter quality), 820 for listings, and an Epson-compatible Fortis printer.  All have served me well for 30 years.  Occasionally I will connect a 1020 just for fun.  I still print out Print Shop banners for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  I will letters were a thing still, I loved using Atariwriter and AW+ and my printers.  Look on eBay, there are lots of Epson compatible printers out there for cheap.

[gilsaluki]

4 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

I am thinking of connecting a printer to my 1200XL. A long time ago I used to have a 1027 but I read somewhere here to avoid buying one of those today since the printer head tends to come apart during use. Which printer should I look for and where?

 

I searched for "printer" in this forum and got well over 4200 results but a lot of them came from topics relating to 3d printing.

 

Thanks!

I started with a 1027, loved it till it shred its wheel.  I bought into one of the remakes of the rubber.  Search 1027 resurrection.  It was a disaster, results were so poor that I had to put the printer back in the box.  Too bad, I wish there was a real solution.

[+bob1200xl]

2 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

Thank you for your replies!

 

@skr I am in the US and you are in Germany, I think. Yes, shipping will probably be more than the cost of the printer itself.

 

@bob1200xl I was hoping to print my text based journals, code samples, and some financial statistics. Plots and charts would be nice but not a must-have. What is the soldering job you are referring to?

 

I searched for "atari centronics" and nothing active in the US came up either. A few international sellers are selling interface boxes and they are too expensive for me, especially with shipping added in. I suppose an 850 box would work just as well here. Then I could use any "modern" printer, yes?

 

I'm feeling a pull toward a XMM801 and 1025 printer that gives a direct connection but no active listings on eBay came up. Are ribbons still available for these?

 

You have to replace a 100 ohm resistor with a wire (or, a 1 ohm resistor is my preference)

 

Basic listings really need a program that prints special characters on an Epson compatible printer. Same goes for most types of graphs and charts.

 

Not to mention the speed difference. The best setup I ever had (until I got lasers) was an HP DJ500 with an Epson cartridge.

 

I can get you an interface...

 

Bob

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

This is my first multi-quote message. Let's see if I do this correctly.

4 hours ago, 8bitguy1 said:

Have you considered a Fujinet? Prints PDF to your PC wirelessly. Just a thought.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@8bitguy1 I don't fully know what the Fujinet device is but it seems to be some kind of all-in-one interface. The idea of printing to a PDF sounds very nice but it all seems rather complicated to conceptualize. Maybe my brain is still working in the 1980's.  I need to learn more about this.

4 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

My gosh, the supply of printers that will operate with the Atari8 is almost limitless.  With a printer interface (850, PR Connection, etc, etc, etc) that can be had real cheap now you can hook up almost any parallel printer.  Star Printers, Epson printers, Panasonic printers.  I have 4 or 5 printers connected.  Alphacom 42 (thermal for listing), XDM-121 (letter quality), 820 for listings, and an Epson-compatible Fortis printer.  All have served me well for 30 years.  Occasionally I will connect a 1020 just for fun.  I still print out Print Shop banners for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  I will letters were a thing still, I loved using Atariwriter and AW+ and my printers.  Look on eBay, there are lots of Epson compatible printers out there for cheap.

@gilsaluki Epson printers! I did not even think of them because I did not think anything non-Atari would work well. However, it seems like this is not the case. Thanks for bringing this up. I used to have a Panasonic KXP-1180 which had some sort of Epson compatibility but I cannot remember the details.

4 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

I started with a 1027, loved it till it shred its wheel.  I bought into one of the remakes of the rubber.  Search 1027 resurrection.  It was a disaster, results were so poor that I had to put the printer back in the box.  Too bad, I wish there was a real solution.

@gilsaluki I think I found the thread and it was called something like "1027 revival". Yes, I see there was an effort to make a replacement character set that would attach to the wheel. Sad to see it did not work.  

2 hours ago, bob1200xl said:

You have to replace a 100 ohm resistor with a wire (or, a 1 ohm resistor is my preference)

 

Basic listings really need a program that prints special characters on an Epson compatible printer. Same goes for most types of graphs and charts.

 

Not to mention the speed difference. The best setup I ever had (until I got lasers) was an HP DJ500 with an Epson cartridge.

 

I can get you an interface...

 

Bob

@bob1200xl Can you send me some background information on this modification? Why is it needed? I will send you a PM too.

 

 

[Mark2008]

I hooked up my tandy dmp 105 recently  but ribbons are not available.  i definitely wanted to have a printer in my mix. im using an ape face for sio2centronics.   replaced the dmp 105 with  epson fx80.

 

works good for me.  i had an 822 back in the day but you cant find one now .  

Edited February 18, 2021 by Mark2008

[TGB1718]

9 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

I searched for "atari centronics" and nothing active in the US came up either.

This is a Centronics interface, plugs into SIO, needs no drivers

[gilsaluki]

Search "Atari Printer" on Ebay.  Here's an interface that works well.  There are others.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Microprint-Printer-Interface-By-MPP-for-Atari-XE-XL-800-New/143019152533?hash=item214c9b1495:g:67YAAOSwNTNb8mCv

[gilsaluki]

An interface for $10.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MPP-1150-Parallel-Printer-Interface-for-Atari-8-bit-Computers/184426111083?hash=item2af0a7206b:g:4-8AAOSwG-dfTP1W

[gilsaluki]

And here is the VERY best interface for a little more. ICD's PR:Connection

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-400-800-XL-XE-ICD-P-R-Connection-printer-modem-interface-with-cables-1/124565027832?hash=item1d00a77bf8:g:JZcAAOSwmZBgIWWN

[+Larry]

Do you have a Windows printer? 

 

My solution is to use APE (from Atarimax.com); gives a wide range of printing options including printing Atascii listings.  If you can use a PC with your Atari system, this solution works well!  Quite a few Atarians use a small (even very old) laptop to serve this need.  In addition, APE gives great ease of use to ATR's from the power of Windows. I rarely use floppy disks anymore. (RespeQt gives many of these features and is improving all the time.)  I don't know much about SIO2SX other than it exists, if you are a Mac user.

 

The typical "ya-but" to this is that some folks don't want to have a PC "tethered" to their Atari.  It's never been an issue with me.  I welcome the idea of not having an extra printer on my desk.

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

20 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

This is a Centronics interface, plugs into SIO, needs no drivers

@TGB1718 I didn't see that in my search results.

18 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

Search "Atari Printer" on Ebay.  Here's an interface that works well.  There are others.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Microprint-Printer-Interface-By-MPP-for-Atari-XE-XL-800-New/143019152533?hash=item214c9b1495:g:67YAAOSwNTNb8mCv

@gilsaluki I saw at some of these MPP auctions and looked at zoomed in pictures of the documentation. The documentation claims these do not work on the 1200XL. Maybe that is because the 1200XL needs the SIO modification @bob1200xl mentioned here. (??)

17 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

And here is the VERY best interface for a little more. ICD's PR:Connection

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-400-800-XL-XE-ICD-P-R-Connection-printer-modem-interface-with-cables-1/124565027832?hash=item1d00a77bf8:g:JZcAAOSwmZBgIWWN

@gilsaluki I saw that one too and had two hesitations. First, the seller does not offer returns. Second, the description for the item is coming up blank in my browser. The price seemed a little steep but maybe the price is actually fair. 

16 hours ago, Larry said:

Do you have a Windows printer? 

 

My solution is to use APE (from Atarimax.com) gives a wide range of printing options including printing Atascii listings.  If you can use a PC with your Atari system, this solution works well!  Quite a few Atarians use a small (even very old) laptop to serve this need.  In addition, APE gives great ease of use to ATR's from the power of Windows. I rarely use floppy disks anymore. (RespeQt gives many of these features and is improving all the time.)  I don't know much about SIO2SX other than it exists, if you are a Mac user.

 

The typical "ya-but" to this is that some folks don't want to have a PC "tethered" to their Atari.  It's never been an issue with me.  I welcome the idea of not having an extra printer on my desk.

@Larry Hi Larry. Actually, I do run APE from Atarimax using their SIO2PC adapter on an old Windows computer, which works quite well here. To be honest, I was so fixated on a real physical printer that I forgot to consider even looking at what I already have. Thanks for shaking me awake here.  I will have to explore APE in the next day or two. It may not fully scratch my printer itch but it's definitely worth trying to see how it works.

[+slx]

While I do have old printers I'd rather go for the APE or FujiNet route unless you absolutely insist on period feel. AFAIK there is no 9-pin Atari branded printer so you won't get real descenders easily. Unless you print a lot ribbons dry up and you get poor printing quality in exchange for a lot of noise. I foolishly gave away my Epson FX-80 (with NLQ ROM) and Star 24-pin printers and kept an 1029 I had never even used because I thought it would be more collectible. While it's sleek looking it is a lot noisier than the others, the print quality and speed are not very convincing, and while the ribbons are readily available, they seem to dry out over a couple of months, if not weeks, leaving you with light grey prints. 

 

If you need quality prints, there's a rather cheap Brother laser printer with a Centronics interface that should work with one of the Centronics interfaces mentioned above. While it's quite a period clash, those tend to be better when used infrequently.

[gilsaluki]

5 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

@TGB1718 I didn't see that in my search results.

@gilsaluki I saw at some of these MPP auctions and looked at zoomed in pictures of the documentation. The documentation claims these do not work on the 1200XL. Maybe that is because the 1200XL needs the SIO modification @bob1200xl mentioned here. (??)

@gilsaluki I saw that one too and had two hesitations. First, the seller does not offer returns. Second, the description for the item is coming up blank in my browser. The price seemed a little steep but maybe the price is actually fair. 

@Larry Hi Larry. Actually, I do run APE from Atarimax using their SIO2PC adapter on an old Windows computer, which works quite well here. To be honest, I was so fixated on a real physical printer that I forgot to consider even looking at what I already have. Thanks for shaking me awake here.  I will have to explore APE in the next day or two. It may not fully scratch my printer itch but it's definitely worth trying to see how it works.

ICD made quality products.  I have used my ICD PR:Connection for OVER 30 years without fail.  The price when new was $79.00 or so.  So, his asking price is not out of this world.  it really is a great interface.  It has the added bonus of having a SIO port that can be used for other external devices like a SIO2SD or other devices.  Also, It does not require an external power supply.  Come to think of it, I think you'd have to do the simple mod to the 1200xl for this as well to power it.  The mod REALLY is very easy. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 2/17/2021 at 5:07 PM, bob1200xl said:

The 1025 does not have reliability issues like the 1027 or 1020 and it hooks directly to you Atari on SIO.

One thing I'll mention about the 1020: it's a neat little printer, but you really do not want to use it for anything involving a lot of text.  Slow, clacky while it prints, and not the best for readability, though it's far from the worst print quality I've ever seen.

 

For graphs, charts, and plots they're great - but so is a screen dump to a dot-matrix.

[+DrVenkman]

Another vote for a FujiNet. It’s got support for close to a dozen different printers. The device connects to your Atari through the SIO bus and connects to a wifi network. You can connect to it via a tablet, phone or computer web browser and set which printer you want it to emulate. When you print from your Atari, the device receives the output from the SIO bus and renders a beautiful PDF. You can then open the PDF on your modern device and do whatever you want with it. 

 

 

[BillC]

28 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Another vote for a FujiNet. It’s got support for close to a dozen different printers. The device connects to your Atari through the SIO bus and connects to a wifi network. You can connect to it via a tablet, phone or computer web browser and set which printer you want it to emulate. When you print from your Atari, the device receives the output from the SIO bus and renders a beautiful PDF. You can then open the PDF on your modern device and do whatever you want with it.

Something that would be nice would be the ability to select the printer to be emulated by using a printer#, instead of having to configure for each change. I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, or if there are even sufficient resources. An example of this is the following that was implemented in the XEP80 AUTORUN.SYS.

Quote

Default configuration supports 8 different printer devices:  

                    P1: XEP80 parallel port

                    P2: 850 Interface Module parallel port (e.g., Atari 825)

                    P3: 1025 Printer  

                    P4: 1020 Color Plotter  

                    P5: 1027 Printer  

                    P6: 1029 Printer    

                    P7: XMM801 Printer    

                    P8: XDM121 Printer                  

 The handler interprets P: (no device number) to mean, P1:

 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by BillC

[+DrVenkman]

Yeah, I have no clue how difficult that would be to implement but I'm sure Thom would accept code in the Github repository if someone wants to make it happen. Anyway, here are some screen-snip of PDFs I made a couple months ago playing around with the various models of printers supported. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[manterola]

7 hours ago, slx said:

If you need quality prints, there's a rather cheap Brother laser printer with a Centronics interface that should work with one of the Centronics interfaces mentioned above. While it's quite a period clash, those tend to be better when used infrequently.

Which Brother printer are you referring to? 

I am interested...

I tried an old Epson EPL5900 which supports esc/p and fx emulation and has Centronics connector when I was back at parents home last year and it did not work.  I really wanted it to work so I read all the documentation and it happen to start in another protocol and I needed the epson driver for windows 98 or 2000 to make it switch to esc/p and the config is lost after a power cycle anyway, so a printer that has everything to work with Atari  did not work.

My point is, are you sure that Brother printer works with Atari 8 bits (in graphic mode)?

[+orpheuswaking]

That's a pretty good price for a P:R Connection especially with cables. If I didn't have one I would grab it myself. But you would have to do the 5v mod (you really should do that anyway) 

 

 

[Gunstar]

I use a late 80's Panasonic KX-P2023 24-pin dot-matrix with my 1200XL (which of course has the resister fix spoken of) with Supra Corporations MicroPrint Centronics interface (the same as MPP's interface as Supra bought them out). It does require the resister fix as the interface uses +5V from the 1200XL. But the Panasonic is 100% Epson compatible which also means it's 100% compatible with virtually any Atari program that prints since Epson was the standard back then, and even Atari software developers made sure their software had drivers for Epsons.

 

I haven't looked to see if there is a new ribbon out there that works with it, I have the original and an extra I picked up at a Goodwill that was dry, and I re-ink them myself. But that's a whole other topic I won't get into now, and though re-inking works fine, I'd rather be able to pick up new working ribbon cartridges than have to go through the trouble. But I don't trust old-stock since I have one already that was dry.

 

I do have Fujinet, and while printing to PDF allows the classic dot-matrix look, I still use my Panasonic for my personal hard-copies of program listings. I still use a 1020 too, that I re-ink my own pens for as well, to use with CAD programs. There are a lot of great things about Fujinet including it's printer facilities, but I'd rather print to my vintage printers and writing I do for magazines and whatnot gets sent in rich text format converted from the Atari Last Word processor I use and sent via e-mail, not PDF. But I do use Fujinet to get the documents to my PC from the Atari now, nice and wireless without the need for software running on the PC like with SIO2PC and PC virtual drive software like APE or AspeQT. One of the many great features I love about Fujinet, even though it has a couple, like PDF printing that is great if you don't have a vintage Atari printer and want that look, but if you already have a vintage printer, I'd rather use it myself.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Gunstar