Quadram APIC-G

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Quadram APIC-G

I just got this printer card with no documentation, and I couldn't find any in the usual places I know of. Does anyone out there have a manual for it?

 

Here's a blurb I found that describes it:

APIC Graphics

The Apple Parallel Interface Card is manu-factured by the Quadram Corporation as a Centronics compatible parallel interface for the Apple II and Apple II+ computers. The card contains a graphics option. Both Apple Graphics pages can be printed from the screen with several simple commands.

APIC-G has many text features, including adjustable margins, page length, line length. and others. APIC-G is available for several types of printers.

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It is a parallel printer card

It is a parallel printer card.  You need cable that connects from the DB25 to a Centronics connector for most printerst.  I don't know what printer(s) it supports.  Most common is Epson style, but it could also be C, Itoh (Apple DMP) or many others.

 

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Yep, I know what it is, I

Yep, I know what it is, I just don't know how to use this one specifically.

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Do you have the cable for it?

Do you have the cable for it?  If not you'll probably have to make one because that's not a common setup using a DB25 like that.

 

As for how to use it...  Most software that supports a parallel printer should work with it, since it probably basically is compatible with one of the common cards like the Apple Parallel Card, Epson APL, etc.

 

If you just want to print program listings...  Put the card in slot 1, then "PR#1" then type "LIST"  or "CATALOG" or whatever you want to print out.  It should be basically that simple.

 

For printing the graphics pages I don't know how to do it on that particular card but it probably isn't that different from most of the other similar cards.  Either you do a "CALL" to an address in the card EPROM or you type a certain character sequence to kick off the graphics screen print.

 

But try something like Phoenix Graphics if you can't figure or find those things.  It will probably work.

 

 

 

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It did come with a cable. I

It did come with a cable. I had just assumed it would be the same as a PC parallel cable, but I just took a look and it's actually not, that's interesting. I don't actually have a parallel printer around at the moment but yeah, I will try some of those things when I can.

 

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bradleyb wrote:It did come
bradleyb wrote:

It did come with a cable. I had just assumed it would be the same as a PC parallel cable, but I just took a look and it's actually not, that's interesting. I don't actually have a parallel printer around at the moment but yeah, I will try some of those things when I can.

 

 

It actually doesn't surprise me at all that the pinout is not the same.  I'd guess that they only used a DB25 on this instead of an IDC-20 or IDC-26 like on most earlier Apple Parallel cards because of this one probably being designed to fit in the back of a //e which has cut-outs for DB connectors.  The 1983 date on the board is kind of a hint to that.  The fact that the PC also used a DB25 for parallel was more of a coincidence probably.  Earlier versions of the board may not have used a DB25 at all.

 

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.

That makes sense.

And in the only other photo I've seen of one of these, (miscategorized as a serial card, which must speak to the oddity of using DB25 in the era): https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Interface%20Cards/Serial/Quadram%20Serial%20Printer%20Interface%20Card/Photos/

it has the same connector, so it does look it came that way from the vendor.

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Quadram APIC-G Parallel cable pinout

For anyone who might need to build a cable for this card, here's the pinout. Differs from a "standard" PC printer cable by only two pins:

 DB-25   Centronics
 1       1       Strobe
 2       2       Data0
 3       3       Data1
 4       4       Data2
 5       5       Data3
 6       6       Data4
 7       7       Data5
 8       8       Data6
 9       9       Data7
 10      10      Ack
 11      11      Busy
 12      13      Select
 13      20      Ground
 25      19      Ground

To use a common PC parallel cable instead, one should be able to modify the card by swapping lines 12 and 13 on the DB25 pigtail. This will put Select onto pin 13, and pin 12 ("paper out") will go nowhere because that pad is actually not connected to anything on the APIC-G.

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bradleyb wrote:That makes
bradleyb wrote:

That makes sense.

And in the only other photo I've seen of one of these, (miscategorized as a serial card, which must speak to the oddity of using DB25 in the era): https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P

 

 

Yeah. that's definitely the same card, and definitely mischaracterized as a Serial card.  I agree that it came with the DB25 pigtail from the factory.  As I said before, it was done that way so it would fit into the cutouts of the back of a //e.

 

 

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