Cromemco Printer Information

[Aron Hoekstra]

So I swore I'd never get into printer collecting because they just take up too much damn room, but.. I do find myself wanting to get a printer to go with my Cromemco Z-2D, so here I am. I can see that they sold at least one printer, the Cromemco 3355 printer - which from what I can tell seems to be a rebadged NEC Spinwriter 5500-series impact printer. 

On page 7 in the pdf here

https://deramp.com/downloads/mfe_archive/010-S100%20Computers%20and%20Boards/00-Cromemco/30-Non-Disk%20IO%20Devices/3355A%20Printer/Cromemco%203355A%20Printer%20Operators%20Guide%20023-6006%20198003.pdf

it says: 

Does anyone know which specific model Cromemco used as the 3355? To make matters slightly more confusing, I've seen references to a 3355A and a 3355B.

Are there any other printers that are compatible with CDOS? The PRI manual also says it'll work with the 3703 or 3799 dot matrix printers. I'd assume these are also rebadged printers - anyone know what model?

Aron

[Mike Arnold]

Back in the day we never shipped Cromemco printers with CDOS or Cromix systems. Too expensive. Unless you are running Cromemco application software that uses lots of proprietary printer codes, I would suggest a standard dot matrix printer with a parallel interface. You can then connect that to a PRI or a TUART (54h). If you are looking for a daisy wheel printer then be careful with Cromemco's offering. They used (I think) a Diablo with half the electronics ripped out hence the complicated cabling to the PRI (you cannot use a TUART with this). Then they put the missing Diablo electronics functions into software that runs in the operating system. Not a problem with Cromix, but a makes CDOS very fat! Happy to WhatsApp you through the cable/interfacing (CDOS and Cromix differ).

I have an old Epson LQ400 connected to my CDOS system and it works fine.

If you decide to go for a serial interface then you can write your own drivers in CDOS (again, I can help with this). For CDOS I recommend XON/XOFF protocol as requires slightly simpler code than hardware handshake . ETX/ACK protocol  can be a tricky so best avoided unless you are gifted a Qume free of charge.
Mike

[Aron Hoekstra]

Hey Mike, thanks for the info - so any parallel interface dot matrix printer should work? What about daisy-wheel/impact printers - would those also be generally universally compatible if they have a parallel interface?

 Regarding the Spinwriter, are you suggesting that unless I can find a legitimately Cromemco branded one, I should avoid them?

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[Mike Arnold]

Yes any parallel interface dot matrix or daisy wheel should work. I never had one that I could not get working. CDOS itself will just treat the default printer as a dumb printer and that's fine. If you want to do more advanced things then the application itself will need know the printer type to send it the relevant ESC codes. I am thinking of an application like Wordstar for this.

Probably good advice is to only buy a printer for which the manual is available.

If you find a standard Spinwriter you can use it in dumb mode or configure the application to use it properly. 

However, for a cheap and small printer, Epson tends to fit the bill if you just want a dumb printer.

Mike