From: Marcus Andree S. Magalhaes (marcus.magalhaes_at_vlinfo.com.br)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2004 - 10:35:50 PST
I understand your point, but, to put it simply, it's a bit bizarre.
Well, in one side, you have, say, an RS-232 data path running in
8N1 mode at 9600 bauds. The uC "only" needs to sync, get the data,
hold a dozen bits or so, and, to the other side, convert each group
of 8 bits to 1 byte, set the strobe bit and send the byte...
That's a "standard" convertion of serial to parallel.
I really don't see the need of "understanding" the meaning of
the information, just pass it away to the otherside...
Unless we have some seriously hacked and weird stuff being
generated by the newton... I acknowledge that this is just as
possible as anything else, though. But really can't see a
good reason for it.
I have two epson printers at home. They have both serial and parallel
ports. Can bet that they process exactly the same information (Epson
ESCP2 or similar), but the bytes just come in different ways, but
they, after all, are the same bytes....
Did anyone have compared what comes and goes to the print pack cable
and compared the differences (in a byte-per-byte level) ?
>
> It's not that simple. How does it know how to convert RS-232 to
> parallel? There's no such thing as a "standard" conversion. So the
> microcontroller embedded into the converter will only convert when it
> recieves data conforming to whatever protocol was defined. Which,
> since it isn't a standard, is subject to change. The software (in this
> case, the PrintPack2 driver on the Newton) knows how to speak this
> protocol, but after the Newton was cancelled the later models of
> converters were changed and became incompatible.
>
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