[Coco] [coco] Okidata ML 172 on my coco

[George Ramsower]

I can't find the manual on this ML 172 printer.

What I'm loking for is the info on all the setup stuff to do the graphics, 
varous text fonts and sizes and all that stuff. Even Okidata doesn't offer 
this support today.
I'm surprised that a maintenance manual is available in numerous places, 
most free. I have one now, but it's useless.
(If it works, don't fix it!)

Are there other Oki DMP printers that might perform with the same 
instructions as this ML 172?

Would anyone have a manual for something that is compatible?

Oh! I want to make this thing work on my coco so much, I can taste it. It's 
a sweet taste that brings back memories of lines, circles and more.

It was so much more fun than making a picture in Paint Shop Pro and printing 
it to an ink jet printer.

My first Ink Jet printer was an Olivetti Dry Ink Jet printer.
I got that for my coco 2.
 It used a glass ampule that held a sort of powder that when a HIGH voltage 
was applied to the back side, would cause a spark to occur at the end 
closest to the paper. The platten was conductive and the spark would carry s 
spot of the "Dry Ink" and snap it onto the paper.
It made a tiny little spot and worked pretty darn good for doing line 
drawings. There was no shading, or control of the darkness of that spot. It 
took dithering as in normat DMP printing to do that.

 It was so quiet, if you had a TV going, you might not even hear it 
printing.. The paper feed mechanism made more noise than the print head, 
however the platten moved is so small increments that it too, was almost 
silent.

 It was quite a light show to watch it print. The spark was visible and 
always astonished me how fast it zipped across the platten. It had to go 
fast because it had to make a LOT of those little spots make a legible line 
of text. Hence, the slow platten movement.
 I still have a box of those Dry Ink Jet ampules. Wouldn't trade them for 
the world. The printer is now parts... might be something from it that is in 
one of my steam engines or maybe in something else.
 I think it was around 1985 when I bought it. This was when Olivetti decided 
to quit consumer sales and go strictly directed to business and it was a 
close-out item.


Okay, OKAY!!!

 I'm rambling....

I know..

But it's for a COCO for cryin' out  loud!

==========

Movin' on now to what I've learned using this printer....


 I've been printing data to the screen from my CNC stuff so I can see where 
the mill is. I've learned that I can print this info to the printer faster 
than I can print it to the screen.
 It seems it takes longer to print to the coco's screen than it does to 
print to serial port at 9600 baud.

 This is a DOUBLE good thing...

 The reason I chose to use a printer is so I would have a hard copy of the 
data. This way, I could look it over and decide what to do next, without 
having to worry about losing the data printed to the screen. Paper is cheap.

 Then, as I was converting my program to print to the printer instead of the 
screen, I learned that the coco was actually working faster.

 I didn't expect that.

I suppose I should try a real, timed experiment to see if this is true. It 
could be just in my mind because the printer is printing while the coco is 
working and I am not noticing the delays while the coco is transferring data 
to the printer.

 But.... by golly, it does seem faster..

George