Talk:Diablo 630

Remembering the Diablo 630

The Printer Works published a catalog in the 1980's that covered the entire Diablo line with parts and services they had available.

Of special interest was the extensive history of the printers and interesting trivia about the various models and options. I recall that the catalog said the first Diablo HyType was developed by Singer (yes, the sewing machine company) and was originally going to be called Hyper Typer, which was quickly shortened to HyType. The HyType team all quit Singer to continue development on the new printer.

Most of the original HyType and many of the HyType II printers used an external power supply with a large transformer that resided in a wheeled, metal cabinet, with the printer mechanisim semi-recessed into the top. IIRC, all of the 630 series had an internal power supply.

Many different expansion boards were available for Diablo printers, especially the 630 line. Some models of the 630 had enough expansion slots and options that they could be as powerful as a small computer. One model incorporated a keyboard into an extended "nose" on its housing.

The largest 630 was a massive dual carriage model with two seperately driven platens and carriages.

Not all of the 630 series was capable of using metal print wheels. Since the metal wheels were heavier than the plastic ones, a "long block" motor with a longer armature had to be installed (available as an upgrade on some models). Some models with the smaller motor could be set to a slower print speed to use the metal wheels.

An innovation of the 630 was the notched hammer that "captured" a corresponding rib on the backs of the character petals. This helped to improve the print speed by reducing the amount of settling time needed after rotating the wheel into position.

The 630 even had a bit of "excitement" when a batch of control boards were produced using chips made in a factory with poor climate control. A little moisture was captured inside the chips' epoxy coating and at some later time they would short out, sending uncontrolled power to every motor and the print solenoid. The result was a spray of petals ripped from the spinning daisy wheel as the printer attempted to slam the carriage through the side of its housing.

It was either the final series of 630, or a short lived successor, that had a new system of automatically detecting which print wheel was installed. It wasn't compatable with HyType or 630 wheels and it didn't use the notched hammer system due to improvements in the wheel motor and other control systems that reduced vibrations.

That's just what I remember from that catalog, which I ordered when I was looking for replacement ribbons for the Xerox branded Diablo 630 I had with a Xerox 820-II CP/M computer back in the early 1990's.

Here's a link to an old review of the Diablo 630. http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n9/37_The_Diablo_630.php

There was also a 40 CPS version of this printer cleverly named the 640. I bought one bundled with a Xerox 820 II in the early 80's, and it was truly a beast. It had a diagnostic test that would start by printing a character in the center of the page, then print another at center +1, a third at -1, then +2 and -2 until it reached the extreme ends of the carriage. By that time, whatever table you had it sitting on was rocking back and forth as the carriage swung from side to side. It was the most entertaining printer I've ever owned. :)Yasgur 06:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Microstepping ("graphics") resolution

I've just seen the latest addition by Jeh re graphics resolution. I see the cite but I doubt its accuracy. I have here a Juki 6100 manual - a Diablo 630 compatible. It did use a slight superset of the 630 command set but to the best of my knowledge that was limited to support for a few non-ASCII characters (e.g. £) present on the Triumph Adler print wheel. It documents 48 lines per inch the same as the Creative Computing source. However it also documents control codes (ESC U and ESC D) to move the page half a line up and down respectively. These worked even when the line pitch was set to 1/48" giving an effective vertical resolution of 1/96".

Sure, that is a Juki 6100, not a Diablo 630, but a Brother Laser Printer manual [1] also describes the same control codes as part of its 630 emulation. When two manufacturers independently suppport the same codes it lends credence to the idea it was a 630 feature. CrispMuncher (talk) 01:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A lot of Diablo 630 "compatible" machines left out a few things, typically "HYplot mode" ("HYtype" was one of Diablo's trademarks). This would especially be likely for a laser printer which after all can do plotting in a much more straightforward manner.

I did find a scan of an actual Diablo 630 manual online.

• Page 3-19, section 3.9.4 (page 51 in the scan) says that HMI and VMI are set in units of 1/120 and 1/48 inch.
• Page 3-24, section 3.15 says that if VMI is set to an odd number, a half line feed will result in movement of "1/48 inch less than 1/2 line". Now I know the following is OR, but think about it. This would mean that with VMI set to, say, 6 (6/48), a half line feed would result in 3/48" movement or 6/96 (reasonable), but if VMI is set to 5, then we'd get movement of 3/96. (5/48 = 10/96, half of that is 5/96, 1/48 less than that is 3/96.) Then with VMI set to 4 (4/48), half line feeds would give 4/96. This is a discontiguous function. It makes no sense. My strong suspicion is that this is a typo and it was supposed to say "1/96 inch less than 1/2 line", i.e., if VMI was an odd number it simply rounded down. It's very possible that emulators would implement this differently - another printer might well be capable of actual 96 ppi vertical positioning. Certainly a laser printer could be. In any case this section certainly does not state that half line feed works analagously with VMI of 1 as for other values. In fact if we take it as read, it says that a half line feed with VMI of 1 would result in a reverse half line feed.
• Page 3-25, section 3.19, "Graphics mode", gives basic resolutions of 60 x 48 rather than 120 x 48. But "half line feed and negative half line feed act the same in Graphics mode as in Normal mode." Whatever that is.
  • Graphics mode is really just setting the HMI and VMI to those values + printing does not move the head; all head movement is done by repeated space, backspace, etc., commands.
• Finally, page 3-56, section 3.25, "HyPlot Vector Plotting", gives resolution of 120x48. That's probably what the article I ref'd was referring to.

I do have to wonder... if the platen was capable of 1/96 inch movement, why didn't the HyPlot mode, presumably the best "graphics" mode, support 120x96? And why would graphics mode make you use the awkward half line feeds to get to that resolution? My assumption is that the platen was not, in fact, that capable and that 48 steps per inch is what the platen servo motor could do. Nothing in the manual I can find states or implies a vertical resolution of 1/96, except that strange-seeming bit about the half linefeed commands.

The Brother Laser Printer manual:

• Does not describe, anywhere I can find, the behavior for a half line feed with an odd-numbered VMI or a VMI of 1. At least, it's not in the section on VMI, and it's not in the sections on the half line feed commands. To what are you referring?
• Does say that in graphics mode the resolution is 60x48 (same as the Diablo manual) and (unlike the Diablo manual) says nothing about what the half line feed commands will do in this mode.
• Notes that the printer actual resolution is 600 dpi and it will approximate things as best it can to those increments.
• Does not mention HyPlot mode.

As I said, a lot of "emulators" left out HyPlot mode, and a lot of other "emulators" enhanced the command set a trifle. I think my original source was correct for the actual Diablo 630. Jeh (talk) 02:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh look... that Diablo manual provides a ref for the two-characters-per-spoke models. Restoring that, with ref, and improving the refs for plot and graphics mode. Jeh (talk) 03:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed reply. Yes, I agree with you the manual text doesn't sound right at all - nice job tracking it down by the way - I was looking for a Diablo 630 manual a couple of years ago but didn't have any luck tracking it down online. It looks to me that they've played with two alternative wordings - 1/96" less than half a line or rounding down to 1/48". In choosing between the two they mixed up elements of both. Of course that is pure speculation but I've seen precisely that kind of error introduced several times when redrafting.

As for the Brother documentation, you're correct that is does not document the half line action other than the control codes to activate it. I merely checked that to confirm the codes were present and then I assumed it worked in the manner specified in that Juki manual.

I'm curious now as to whether that Juki really does have 1/96" vertical resolution. I believe I still have it but it needs a new ribbon. I'll try and find out what that really does. The manual is very specific but I suppose the author could have misunderstood something along the way. CrispMuncher (talk) 21:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)