Re: decwriter III problem

[ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)]

> 
> I hooked up an decwriter III that hasnt been used in over 10 years. When I
> turn on teh power, every LED lights up, and the 4 digit display lights up
> to all 8's. The printhead doesnt return to the left.

Dunno if this could apply to a Decwriter, but I've seen just this fault 
on other printers (Diablo 630, I think).

It was caused by the CPU not starting, or by it executing the wrong code. 
The ports to drive the front-panel displays weren't initialized, so all 
the lines were stuck high (I think), turning on all the LEDs and display 
segments. And of course the steppers weren't being driven.

I'd start by checking the CPU (assuming it has one) reset input, and then 
seeing what the CPU is doing. It could even be due to bit-rot in the 
EPROMs (One Diablo 630 that did this _did_ have faulty ROMs IIRC).

-tony