Printing from HP-86B ?

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

(07-06-2017 04:24 PM)smp Wrote:  I thought that it might be a good idea to try and add a printer onto my HP-86B setup. I took a look at TAS, and yessiree, there are GPIB printers available, mostly HP ThinkJet 2225As, and, of course their prices start at $100 and go up from there. I'm not sure I want to spend that kind of money for something that I don't know if it even works, nor if I can get supplies for it.

I came across this interesting device:

http://prologix.biz/gpib-usb-controller.html

At $149, at least it is an available device e supported by the company that sells it. However, it seems to be designed to plug onto a piece of test equipment and then a modern computer will control the instrument from its USB port. I'm not so sure if it works the other way around, with the HP-86B being the controller.

Does anyone here have any experience with something like this? What are your thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks, in advance!

smp

You are correct it is designed to drive HPIB devices from USB and they don't normally work the other way around, however I don't have any experience with this particular USB->IEEE488/GPIB/HPIB device.

My setup for printing from 86B is I have a National Instruments GPIB-> Serial adapter, they work very well as they support Xon-Xoff protocol which makes it easy to drive serial printers. I also picked up a Quadram MicrofazerII which supports serial or parallel input and out, switch selectable from the front panel I use it to drive one of my 2671G thermal printers. I have a 2671G with HPIB interface, if you are interested send me an email.

Paul.