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Salora Fellow printer

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:03 am
by MADrigal
How cool is that??? I love it :)

4-colours plotter made by VTech for use with the Salora Fellow (Laser 200/300 series).

I am wondering if it could also work with Laser 2001/Salora Manager.

Currently on auction on Huuto

http://www.huuto.net/kohteet/salora-fel ... /432909399

Re: Salora Fellow printer

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:17 pm
by carlsson
It looks very much the same as the VTech Laser PP-40, but with different coloured case of course. That one seems to have been used even with the Laser 128, probably depending on the interface you need between the computer and plotter.
http://www.trhonline.com/obscure/l128a.htm

According to this page about the Commodore 1520 plotter, the VTech one (as well as every other brand of plotters!) uses the same pens. Those are bit hard to come by today though, at least for a reasonable price. That is a bit of a shame, and quite odd given the vast range of plotter models using the same pens = more general use.
https://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/VC-1520

Re: Salora Fellow printer

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 2:24 pm
by MADrigal
Thanks for the insight, Anders. :)

Re: Salora Fellow printer

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 3:02 pm
by carlsson
See also the back side of the Laser 2001 box. :) Of course VTech may have manufactured several different plotters with the same look, if those connect directly to the expansion bus. I never quite figured out if the 200/300, 350/500/700 and the 2001 have different kind of expansion buses and pinouts.

Here is a somewhat badly OCR:ed article from Creative Computing, February 1984 which mentions the PP-40 with a Centronics parallel interface:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/ ... inters.php

An advertisement (*) for the Laser 3000 which also refers to the PP-40:
http://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/vtech/VTech-Laser3000.pdf

(*) By the way, VTech introduced a number of errors in the comparison on page 12. For instance, the C64 has both Microsoft BASIC, 2 cursor keys and upper and lower case characters. It is also noted that the 3000 a.k.a. CAT later on were shipped with external power supplies, as the internal one was unreliable - the same one as mentioned in the comparison as a benefit that it is built in instead of separate. I wonder about the 4 channel sound, some sources refer to it as 3 channels + 2 noises. I bet it is an ASIC copy of the AY chip, as it handles envelopes. That one kind of has 4 channels in the meaning three square waves and the option to run noise on top of one channel.