Atari SMM804
| Atari SMM804 | |
|---|---|
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| Atari SMM804 with the dust cover closed (photograph: Atari Computermuseum) | |
| Manufacturer | Shinwa Printing International, Hong Kong, for Atari Corp.[1] |
| Type | 9-pin impact dot matrix printer |
| Release date | Shown at the Winter CES, January 1985; on sale in the US from mid-1986 and in Europe from 1988[1] |
| Discontinued | About 1989[1] |
| Price | US$219.95 (1986); DM 698 (1988)[2][1] |
| Interface | 8-bit Centronics-compatible parallel, 36-pin Amphenol 57-40360 socket[3] |
| Compatible | Atari ST; Atari 8-bit computers through an Atari 850 or P:R: Connection[3][2] |
| Dimensions | 113 × 394 × 287 mm (H × W × D)[3] |
| Weight | 4.6 kg[3] |
| Power | 117 V AC 60 Hz or 220 V AC 50/60 Hz, 40 VA average[3] |
The Atari SMM804 is a 9-pin dot matrix printer with a Centronics parallel interface, sold by Atari Corp. for the Atari ST from 1986. It prints 80 characters per second at 10 characters per inch, bidirectionally with logic seeking, takes fanfold or single-sheet paper and uses a snap-in ribbon cartridge.[3] It is the parallel-interface version of the Atari XMM801, which plugs into the 8-bit SIO bus; Antic found the two identical in most respects.[2] atari-computermuseum.de records that both were made by Shinwa Printing of Hong Kong.[1]
History
[edit | edit source]Atari first showed the SMM804 at the Winter CES in Las Vegas on 5 January 1985. After a long delay it reached American shops in the second quarter of 1986, and Europe in 1988, where it cost DM 698.[1] Antic reviewed it alongside the XMM801 in December 1986 at a suggested price of $219.95 each, with street prices as low as $199.97.[2] Atari planned two further ST printers, the SMM810, based on the Star Micronics LC-10, and the 24-pin SMM824 announced in 1989, but released neither. Sig Hartmann said of the 24-pin model that there were already enough inexpensive printers of that kind on the market.[1] atari-computermuseum.de dates the end of production to about 1989.[1]
Specifications
[edit | edit source]| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Print method | Impact dot matrix, 9-pin head |
| Speed | 80 characters per second at 10 cpi |
| Character matrix | 8 × 9 dots (pica) in a 9 × 9 cell |
| Pitches | Pica 10 cpi (80 columns), elite 12 (96), compressed 17.1 (132), and double-width versions of each |
| Bit-image graphics | 8 or 9 dots high; 480, 960 or 1,280 dots per line (60, 120 or 160 dpi) |
| Character sets | US, UK, Finland, Norway/Denmark, Sweden, Japan Roman, Japan Katakana, Germany, French Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Atari ST extended ASCII |
| Line feed | 200 ms at 6 lines per inch |
| Paper | Fanfold (sprocket) or single sheets (friction), 4 to 10 in wide, 0.05 to 0.15 mm thick, original plus two copies |
| Ribbon | Cartridge, multistrike carbon film, about 2 million characters |
| Operating environment | 5 to 35 °C, 20 to 80 % relative humidity |
Antic timed a 20,000-character text file from an Atari 800XL through an 850 at 5 min 28 s, about 61 characters per second, against 6 min 32 s for the XMM801. ST screen dumps were much slower than on an Epson FX-85: a GEM desktop took 4 min 55 s against the Epson's 42 s. Antic also rated both Atari printers as loud.[2]
Hardware
[edit | edit source]No SMM804 field service manual is held by the Internet Archive or bitsavers. The nearest service document is Atari's XMM801 Field Service Manual (C070435, October 1985), for the SIO version of the same printer.[4] It describes three blocks:
- A mains transformer, made in four versions for 100, 115, 220 and 240 V and chosen at the factory, giving 5 V DC for the logic and 19 V DC for the print mechanism.[4]
- A main control board with the CPU, an interface board and an operation keyboard (the control panel).[4]
- A print mechanism unit holding the print head, carriage, tractor paper feed and ribbon drive. Atari's manual treats the head as the only part to replace in the field and says the rest of the unit should be exchanged whole.[4]
In the XMM801 the interface board is an Atari SIO board. The same manual also refers to a "Centronics Parallel Interface Board", with DIP switches, in one of its test conditions, and its exploded view labels a "Centronics P.C.B. ass'y".[4] The power supply, mechanism and main board pages of that manual apply to the SMM804 only as far as the two printers really are the same; compare the board against the manual's layout before relying on a value from it.
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Setting up
[edit | edit source]The printer is shipped with tape and a foam cushion holding the carriage, and two shipping screws underneath. To remove the screws, lift the dust cover off, rest the printer on its back panel without bending the interface connector clips, and unscrew them. Atari's manual warns against switching the printer on before the screws, tape and cushion are out.[3]
The box also holds a ribbon cartridge, a wire paper separator and a parallel interface cable.[3] The cable plugs into the ST's printer port at one end and into the 36-pin I/O connector on the back of the printer at the other, held by two wire clips. atari-computermuseum.de describes it as a 36-pin Centronics to 25-pin D-sub cable.[3][1] The on/off switch is on the right-hand side, towards the front.[3]
To fit the ribbon, switch off and remove the dust cover, take up the slack with the knob on the cartridge, raise the paper bail, then lower the near side of the cartridge into the carriage well first so that the guide arms drop into their slots and the exposed ribbon passes between the print head and the metal ribbon mask. Press it down until it snaps in.[3]
Control panel and self-test
[edit | edit source]| Control or light | Function |
|---|---|
| Power light (red) | On while the printer is switched on |
| No Paper light | Lights, with a buzzer, when the paper-out sensor finds no paper; the printer goes off-line and stays off-line until On Line is pressed |
| On Line light and button | Light on when ready, blinking while receiving and printing; the button switches between on-line and off-line |
| Line Feed (LF) | Advances one line, or continuously while held; off-line only |
| Form Feed (FF) | Advances one page; off-line only |
To run the self-test, load paper and a ribbon, then switch on while holding the LF button. The printer prints its full character set for about three minutes or until it is switched off. The print, character spacing and line spacing should be even.[3] At power-up the printer sets pica pitch, 6 lines per inch, 66-line (11 in) pages, tabs every eight characters and bidirectional printing, and takes the print head's position as the top of form.[3]
Parallel interface
[edit | edit source]| Pin | Signal | Direction | Pin | Signal | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | STROBE | In | 14 | AUTO FEED XT | In |
| 2-9 | DATA 1-8 | In | 15 | Not used | |
| 10 | ACKNLG | Out | 16 | Logic ground | |
| 11 | BUSY | Out | 17 | Chassis ground (isolated from logic ground) | |
| 12 | PE (paper end) | Out | 18 | Not used | |
| 13 | SLCT | Out | 19-30 | Twisted-pair returns (ground) | |
| 31 | INIT | In | 32 | ERROR | Out |
| 33 | Ground | 34 | Not used | ||
| 35 | Pulled up to +5 V through a resistor | Out | 36 | SLCT IN | In |
Signals are TTL level; data is taken on the STROBE pulse and handshaken by ACKNLG or BUSY, at up to 1,000 characters per second.[3] On an 8-bit Atari the SMM804 needs an Atari 850 or ICD's P:R: Connection; Antic recommended it over the XMM801 to owners who already had an interface and planned to buy an ST.[2]
Care and troubleshooting
[edit | edit source]Atari's preventive maintenance list:[3]
- Keep the dust cover closed and the print head and carriage area free of dust. Clean the platen and paper-bail rollers now and then with a cotton ball and a little rubbing alcohol, turning the platen knob as you go.
- Do not touch the carriage rod; finger grease collects dust that stiffens the carriage.
- Do not move the print head by hand, and do not switch off while printing. The XMM801 field service manual also limits hand movement of the head to a few seconds during its own tests.[4]
- Do not print without paper and ribbon. The top of the print head gets hot.
- Wait at least two seconds after switching off before switching on again, or the printer may not initialise properly.
- Clean the case with a soft damp cloth only.
| Symptom | Cause and action |
|---|---|
| Printer does nothing | Check the power cord and Power light, the interface cable at both ends, and that On Line is lit. Check for paper: the paper-out sensor takes the printer off-line.[3] |
| Light, smudged or patchy print | Ribbon not seated properly, damaged, or used up. The printer has no ribbon sensor, so a missing or exhausted ribbon gives faint print or none.[3] Antic found the cartridge interchangeable with ribbons for the Commodore 1526 and the Mannesmann Tally Spirit 80, and printed its samples on a Pelikan P-116.[2] |
| Paper jams | Usually mis-loading. Switch off, clear torn pieces from the paper path, and reload. With sprocket paper the release lever must be down; using friction feed with sprocket paper causes jams. With single sheets the lever must be up.[3] |
| Uneven characters or spacing in the self-test | Check the ribbon and paper loading. If the fault persists, Atari's manual sends the printer to a service centre.[3] The XMM801 guides below cover the checks inside. |
| Extra line feed after every line from some ST programs | Software. Antic saw this with Music Studio and PCBoard Designer.[2] |
For faults inside the printer, the Atari XMM801 Troubleshooting and Atari XMM801 Maintenance Guide pages work from the XMM801 field service manual, and the Atari XMM801 Capacitor Replacement Guide lists the electrolytics from its parts list. Compare the SMM804's boards with the manual's layout drawings first.
Documentation
[edit | edit source]- Atari SMM804 Documentation: the owner's manual, with its contents.
- SMM804 Dot Matrix Graphics Printer Owner's Manual (C026248 Rev. A, 1985)
- XMM801 Field Service Manual (C070435, October 1985), for the SIO version
Related pages
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 "Atari SMM804 Dot Matrix Printer", in "Atari ST Peripheriegeräte", atari-computermuseum.de: maker, first showing, sales dates, end of production, price in Germany, cable, and the unreleased SMM810 and SMM824. atari-computermuseum.de. Secondary source.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Gregg Pearlman, "Two New Atari Printers", Antic vol. 5 no. 8, December 1986: XMM801 and SMM804 compared, price, interfaces, graphics resolution, manuals, ribbons, speed test and noise. atarimagazines.com.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 Atari Corp., SMM804 Dot Matrix Graphics Printer Owner's Manual, C026248 Rev. A, 1985: introduction (p. 1); unpacking and shipping screws (p. 5); connecting (p. 6); ribbon cartridge (pp. 7-8); control panel (pp. 16-17); self-test (pp. 17-18); power-up defaults (p. 23); troubleshooting and preventive maintenance (pp. 73-75); interface specifications and pin assignments (pp. 111-114); printer specifications (pp. 115-116). Hosted as File:Atari SMM804 Dot Matrix Graphics Printer Owner's Manual C026248.pdf.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Atari Corp., XMM801 Field Service Manual, C070435, October 1985: basic structure, power supply, control block and print mechanism (p. 3, PDF p. 9); test condition referring to the Centronics parallel interface board and caution on moving the head by hand (p. 21, PDF p. 27); exploded view (p. 41, PDF p. 46). Hosted as File:Atari XMM801 Field Service Manual C070435.pdf.