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Home Forums 1980 Apple silentype printer — #6 1980 Apple silentype printer — #6
Post #6 by Gorgonops
Source Forum1980 Apple silentype printer — #6
CategoryPeripherals
Post DateMon, 15 Apr 2013 - 20:01
Original URLhttps://68kmla.org/bb/threads/1980-apple-silentype-printer.27871/
Post
Obviously the Apple II was powerful enough at the time to run this printer with software
Considering the fact that the CPU in your typical dot matrix printer will be the cheapest and weakest 8 bit MCU the manufacturer can find I'm not sure that's much to crow about.

(A typical full-featured Centronics printer of the same period would use something like an Intel 8049, a device best known for living inside IBM PC keyboards. The Epson MX-80 used a low-clocked 8085, a more-integrated and easier to use descendant of the 8080 inside the 1975 Altair 8800.)

It does stand out as a very typical example of Apple's brand of engineering at the time, IE, rip all the brains out of a peripheral, substitute a dollar's worth of hardware and some beautifully handcrafted (read "really ugly") 6502 code, and charge roughly what the peripheral would have cost with the brain still in it. Step 3: Profit!

(With Apple being the only pre-1980 computer manufacturer still in the fight I don't suppose you can argue with the success of that strategy.)

mp.ls