Universal Printer Driver

In Volume 1, I ran a series on getting the most out of your ZX/TS with full-size printer and Memotech Centronics interface. Since then, this CIF has become unavailable. Fortunately, several other printer interfaces (both parallel and serial) are available. These include Centronics Parallel IF’s by Aerco, Byte-Back, John Oliger, and Tasman, and serial IF’s from Byte-Back and possibly others. Most of these come with “printer driver” software that allow you to LLIST, COPY and LPRINT. At least one (the Aerco) includes an EPROM card that overlays the ROM and allows direct use of the Sinclair commands. The Tasman is the exception (to my knowledge), since it is being imported for the TS2068. (It WILL work with the ZX81/TS1000, however.) Similarly, the Aerco CIF for the TS2068 is identical to the TS1000 version except that it lacks the ROM overlay card. With the appropriate driver software, it too will work with the ZX81 family (and at less cost than the one intended for it).