The Elekterminal with a printer - interface with low cost printers

It is quite easy to connect the Elekterminal, or any other terminal which is equipped with a UART, for that matter to a low cost printer. Most if not all low cost printers incorporate what is known as a "centronics inter- face". Basically the reason for this is that Centronics were one of the leaders in the field of budget printers, and as a result their original interface design has been used by a large number of manufacturers as an industry standard. The unversally available Epson MX 80 is a prime example. The advantage of using such a printer is that the I/O routines do not have to be altered. The Elekterminal already has a UART, converting the serial bit output of the computer into a 8 bit parallel code for video RAMs. So, it is just a simple matter of using the same code to drive the printer in parallel. Link data lines DO ... D7 on the printer interface circuit (which forms part of the printer) to connections BO ... B7 on the Elekterminal printed circuit board. It is obvious...