RetroPrinter Support

Hey,

I'm looking for some pre-buy support. We have a haematology instrument that has a parallel port which is intended to support external printing (based on the original manual, it supports ESC/P2 and PCL3). We connected this to a HP desktjet 310 portable printer and this worked for years, but now the printer has given up, and it is harder and harder to even find ink for this printer.

If I understand correctly, it would be possible to buy this HAT + raspberry pi to "read this data" and convert it to a pdf (and send it to a network printer) ?

This device outputs graphs and text, is that possible with both protocols (hoping one of them work) ? How feesable is it that this will work ? Altough we have a large box of old printer cables and (various other similar looking cables) is there a reputable source where we could buy the parallel to centronics cable ?

I'm familiars with Linux and have tinkered with raspberry pi before, but this is far beyond my skill level in hardware, so I tip my hat ( ) for the work done on this project !

kind regards,

Svenn

Hi Sven,

Yes - the Retro-Printer HAT plus a Raspberry Pi will work in place of the old HP Deskjet - we can emulate either PCL3 or ESC/P2 and both modes support text and graphics. You can tautomatically output to a network printer, or simply use the stored PDFs (and read the PDFs over the network from another PC).

The main issue at the moment will be getting hold of a suitable Raspberry Pi, unless you have a spare (not the Pi 4) - everywhere seems to be out of stock.

We have some parallel to centronics cables if you no longer have the one you used with the old printer.

Rich

Hey Rich,

Thanks for the help! I got a Rpi 1 and a pi zero W collecting dust right here, can those still be used ? I have been googling and was able to find 3B+ still in some local stock, so it should be doable. I'm happy to hear it might work (on both protocols)!

We have the printer cable, but I think it is parallel to parallel, I will check to be sure. I was under the impression it required a specific cable.

Thanks !
Nice holidays!

The original Raspberry Pi should still work, but my issue is that I don't have one any longer in order to recompile the software image.

Raspberry Pi Zero is definitely not going to work.

A Raspberry Pi 3B+ is ideal for the v4 Retro-Printer - if you could post a link to where you found some, that might help others!

Check your cable - it might have been 25 pin to 25pin serial port!

Rich

Ah, I mistranslated french, indeed they are hard to find ... The only shop stating a delivery date is 05-2022 I might be able to compile the software ? Anyway, thanks for the info!

kind regards,

Svenn