RetroPrinter Support

Hi Guys!

Searching at the internet makes - sometimes - so much fun. Never could believe that I find a soluten for my - as it looks like - nt so seldom problem.

The background:
I'm using two quite old but well working "Swim Timing Consoles" (http://www.coloradotime.com/system-6-timing-console). This consoles are printing their timing results for documentation to a prallel port. Even they are Linux based, there is no way to redirect the output to a network printer.
However, the parallel printer I'm using is on the way to its end. Of course I could buy a used one at ebay, but this would solve just one of my problems.

Because we have two consoles (one is working as backup), just one can be connected to the printer. In case you need the timing information ot the backup one you have to unplug the printer and connect it to the other console and vice versa. Prallel printer switches I've thrown away in dozends many years ago...

What I would like to achieve is the following:
needed:

• have a RasPi with the RetroPriner module connected to the Colorado Console asdfasdf

• saving the printoutput in a file - one file per job

• sending each job to a CUPS Printer deamon on the same raspi

nice to have:

• have a second module connected to the same RasPi
  even if this means some hardware reconfiguration

Are there any chances to realize my ideas - at least the second part of it?
And of course, when will the module available again, or is there a circuit diagram to build a dual one by my own?

regards

Welcome to the forums.

The Retro-Printer is actually still available - see https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/detai ... odel-37159

It is the v4 module (which fixes some hardware issues which is not currently released) hence the above is offered at a reduced price.

You could not attach two retro-printer modules to the same Raspberry Pi computer unfortunately, - they are physically a dead end because of the need for the centronics port and offline switch etc on the top, let alone how you would overcome sharing the signals etc.

The simplest solutions I can think of:

a) You have two Raspbery Pi computers, but just one Retro-Printer module and move it over if required
b) You simply move the Raspberry Pi from one machine to the other (the same way you would have moved a physical printer)
c) You use two sets of Raspberry Pi computers + Retro-Printer modules, with a switch box - you can still purchase printer switch boxes without too much expense today!