Printing from a SPHERE with a SWTPC PR-40. Vintage Peripherals with Peddle’s PIA!

Technical and historical dive into Southwest Technical’s amazing little 1976 PR-40 Printer, and how it can be connected to a Sphere computer (or any vintage computer!) using Motorola’s magical 6820 PIA chip. We look at how this special peripheral and its parallel interface works. We connect the hardware and trigger the printer using only a live debugger, before using real diagnostics and demonstrating a small word processor text editor for Sphere that has been updated to allow printing. Come along for the adventure! Chapters: 00:00 The SWTPC PR-40 Printer 04:48 Chuck Peddle and the PIA 06:28 Interface with Sphere 08:37 Hooking it up & manual test 11:17 Diagnostic program 12:48 Printing from a text editor Sphere computer resources, emulator, book updates: Chuck Peddle Full 2014 Oral History (Computer History Museum): Tech Time Traveller video about the PR-40 printer: Documentation for the Southwest Technical PR-40: Ben’s Scriptor text editor code: More information on connecting Sphere to PR-40 linked at: The great Scott portrait of Peddle: My thanks to Larry P, John R, the Computer History Museum, and Chuck Peddle (1937-2019). Copyright (c) 2024 Ben Zotto. Music (c) (p) Arcal Productions, used with permission.