| From: | Michael Bourne |
| Date: | 22 Jan 2000 at 05:10:25 |
| Subject: | Re: Print cables |
From: Michael Bourne <michael@circleware.org>
Hello J,
>> I have a regular PC printer cable hooked from my Amiga 4000 to
>> my laserjet III printer. This cable is six foot.
> Good grief. I didn't know we ever needed special cables. I just
> stuck in a Centronics // cable and it worked. Am I just dead
> lucky, or what?
> I'm talking about a 1200 btw, but I also did the same with a 500
> a while ago. Is this really just luck?
It's likely that pin 14 *is* connected through (AUTO LF IN) on
the PC cable. What the printer does with it I've never checked to
find out, but since it appears to be an input to the printer it
would seem to be a harmless connection in reality and experience.
I've just checked a pc style cable I have here and it is connected
through on pin 14. Same goes for the cable I normally use...
It's not a real problem because
A) the reason given above: the printer doesn't significantly
load this line nor drives the line
B) on the Amiga side the +5V pullup power is fed via a 47 ohm
resistor from the +5V User output from the Amiga power supply,
at least on the A2000... others probably from where ever is
convenient..it doesn't really matter a lot.
This means tha even if pin 14 on your parallel output port were to
be held low (down to ground level) the maximum current drawn would
only be about 106mA (milli Amps), power dissipation about 0.5 watts
and although a bit rough on the limiting 47 ohm resistor it will
probably survive; and if not you won't notice.... :)
Of course, this doesn't occur anyway because of reason (A) :)
If in doubt, break out pin 14 of the DB25M connector on your
printer cable, and call it an Amiga printer cable.
Regards
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