Centronics

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Centronics

Centronics Data Computer Corporation was a pioneering American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name.

ronics began as a division of Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts , Tewksbury, Massachusetts , and Lowell, Massachusetts ....
. Founded and initially operated by Robert Howard (president) and Samuel Lang (vice president and owner of the well known K & L Color Photo Service Lab in New York City), the group produced remote terminals and systems for the casino industry.

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Encyclopedia

Centronics Data Computer Corporation was a pioneering American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name.

History

The beginning

Centronics began as a division of Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories

Hudson, New Hampshire

Hudson is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 22,928 at the 2000 census.The primary settlement in town, where over 34% of the population resides, is defined as the Hudson census-designated place and is located at the junctions of New Hampshire Routes New Hampshire Route 102, New H...
with Howard as president and chairman.

The Centronics Model 101 was introduced at the 1970 National Computer Conference. The print head used an innovative seven-wire solenoid impact system. Based on this design, Centronics later made the claim to have developed the first dot matrix impact printer

Dot matrix printer

A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer is a type of computer printer with a print head that runs back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like a typewriter....
.

Howard developed a personal relationship with his neighbor, Max Hugel, the founder and president of Brother International, the US arm of Brother Industries, a manufacturer of sewing machines and typewriters. A business relationship developed when Centronics needed reliable manufacturing of the printer mechanisms--a relationship that would help propel Brother into the printer industry. Hugel would later become executive vice president of Centronics. Print heads and electronics were built in Centronics plants in New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a U.S. state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States of America. The state was named after the southern English Counties of England of Hampshire....
and Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
, mechanisms were built in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
by Brother and the printers were assembled in New Hampshire.

In the 1970s, Centronics formed a relationship with Canon

Canon Inc.

is a Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, Photocopying and computer printers....
to develop non-impact printers. No products were ever produced, but Canon continued to work on laser printers, eventually developing a highly successful series of engines.

In 1977, Centronics sued competitor Mannesmann AG

Tally Ltd

Tally was a leading American manufacturer of printers.Founded in 1949 in Kent, Washington, United States, the company was a leading manufacturer of punch tape readers....
in a patent dispute regarding the return spring used in the print actuator.

In 1975, Centronics formed an OEM

Original Equipment Manufacturer

OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer".An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM is typically a company that uses a component made by a second company in its own product, or sells the product of the second company under its own brand....
agreement with Tandy

Tandy Corporation

Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, which is best known for purchasing and giving its name to the Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack....
and produced DMP and LP series printers for several years. The 6000 series band printers were introduced in 1978. By 1979 company revenues were over $100 million.

In 1980, the Mini-Printer Model 770 was introduced--a small, low-cost desktop serial matrix printer. This was the first printer built completely in-house, and there were problems. Flaws in the microprocessor

Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit on a single integrated circuit . The first microprocessors emerged in the early 1970s and were used for electronic calculators, using Binary-coded decimal arithmetic on 4-bit Word ....
led to a recall and a stoppage of manufacturing for a year. During this period, Epson, Brother and others began to gain market share and Centronics never recovered. 1980 also saw the introduction of the E Series 900 and 1200 LPM band printers.

A change of hands

In 1982, Control Data Corporation merged their current printer business unit, CPI

Computer Peripherals Inc

Computer Peripherals, Inc. was an United States manufacturer of computer printers, based in Rochester, Michigan, Michigan. Its precursor, Holley Computer Products, was formed as a joint venture between Control Data Corporation and the Holley Carburetor Company in April 1962....
, into Centronics and at the same time invested $25 million in the company, effectively taking control from Howard. Control Data controlled the company until 1986 when CDC's interest was acquired by a group of investors affiliated with Drexel Burnham Lambert

Drexel Burnham Lambert

Drexel Burnham Lambert was a major Wall Street investment banking firm, which first rose to prominence and then was driven into bankruptcy in February 1990 by its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market, driven by Drexel employee Michael Milken....
. The Drexel interest was acquired by Centronics in 1987.

The LineWriter 400 band printer was introduced in 1983 closely followed by the faster LineWriter 800 band printer in 1984. The LineWriter series would continue through 1995. The GLP (Great Little Printer) was a series of low-end serial matrix printers introduced in 1984.

The relationship with Brother continued with several of the PrintStation models being produced from rebadged Brother products. Exclusive rights to market Trilog color matrix printers was acquired in 1984, and Trilog was purchased outright in 1985. Advanced Terminals (a manufacturer of sheet feeders) and BDS Computer Australia Pty Ltd were purchased in 1986.

The PrintStation 350 series serial matrix printer was highly successful in the OEM

Original Equipment Manufacturer

Data General

Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation....
, ITT Courier, NCR

NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation is a technology company specializing in products for the retail and financial sectors. Its main products are point of sale, automatic teller machines, cheque processing systems, barcode reader, and business consumables....
, CDC

Control Data Corporation

Control Data Corporation was one of the pioneering supercomputer firms. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s to what was effectively a spinoff, after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
, Decision Data and ISI. Most profitable was the agreement to build the IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue" , is a multinational corporation computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, New York, United States....
4214 based on a modified PS350. In 1985, company revenues were $126 million with $65 million from IBM 4214 production. In 1986 the IBM 4214 production ended and revenue dropped. On June 23, 1986, Centronics announced the new corporate logo.

The only Centronics laser

Laser printer

A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a Xerography printing process but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced by the direct scanning of a laser beam acros...
product was released in July 1986: the PagePrinter 8. The PP8 used a Sharp

Sharp Corporation

is a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in 1912.It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915....
engine identical to an existing Sharp copier, using a 6800

Motorola 6800

The 6800 is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Motorola and released shortly after the Intel 8080 in late 1974. It had 78 instructions, including the famous, undocumented Halt and Catch Fire bus test instruction....
based controller jointly developed by Sharp and Centronics. At $2,495, the PP8 was $500 less than the HP

Hewlett-Packard

The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States....
LaserJet

LaserJet

LaserJet is the brand name used by the American computer company Hewlett-Packard for their line of xerography laser printers....
. A faster version was announced, but never materialized.

Printer division sale

In 1987 the Centronics printer business was sold to GENICOM

GENICOM

From 1982 to 2003, GENICOM was a leading United States manufacturer of computer printers, based in Chantilly, Virginia....
. Centronics Data Computer Corporation continued as a New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange based in New York City, New York. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by United States dollar market capitalization of its listed companies' Security ....
company and soon changed its name to Centronics Corporation in 1987. After using the proceeds of the sale to purchase Ecko Housewares in 1988, Centronics changed their name to ECKO Group

World Kitchen

World Kitchen, LLC is a kitchenware products maker and distributor based in Rosemont, Illinois. The company began as the Corning Consumer Products division of glassmaker Corning Inc.....
..

Model 101

The 101 was highly innovative and affordable at its inception. Some selected specifications:

Print speed: 165 characters per second
Weight: 155 pounds
Size: 27 ½ " W x 11 ¼ " H x 19 ¼ D
Shipping: 200 pounds, wooden crate, unpacked by removal of 36 screws
Characters: 62, 10 numeric, 26 upper case and 26 special characters (no lower case)
Character size: 10 characters per inch
Line spacing: 6 lines per inch
Vertical control: punched tape reader for top of form and vertical tab
Forms thickness: original plus four copies
Interfaces: Centronics parallel, optional RS-232 serial

The interface

Dr. An Wang

An Wang

Dr. An Wang was a Chinese American computer engineer and inventor, and co-founder of computer company Wang Laboratories....
, Robert Howard and Prentice Robinson developed the Centronics parallel interface

Parallel port

A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics#The interface....
at Wang Laboratories. Wang had a surplus stock of 20,000 Amphenol

Amphenol

Amphenol Corporation is a major producer of electronic and fiber optic connectors, cable and interconnect systems. Amphenol is a portmanteau from the corporation's original name, American Phenolic Corp....
36-pin micro ribbon

Micro ribbon

The micro ribbon connector is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computer and telecommunications applications. Popularly referred to as a Centronics connector due to the widely used Centronics parallel interface, it is also known as a Telco, Amphenol, 25-pair, Delta ribbon or CHAMP conn...
connectors that were originally used for one of their early calculators. The connector has become so closely associated with Centronics that it is now popularly known as the “Centronics connector”. The Centronics parallel interface quickly became an industry de facto

De facto

De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning the fact" or in practice but not necessarily ordained by law. It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or technique that are found in the common experience as created or developed without or contrary to a regulation....
standard. Manufacturers of the time tended to use various connectors on the system side, so a variety of cables were required. When IBM

IBM

IBM PC

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform ....
, they used the DB25F

D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
connector at the PC-end of the interface, creating the now familiar parallel cable with a DB25M at one end and a 36 pin micro ribbon connector at the other. HP

Hewlett-Packard

The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States....
adopted Centronics parallel on their printer models and introduced a bidirectional version known as Bitronics on the LaserJet 4

HP LaserJet 4

The HP LaserJet 4 is a group of monochrome laser printers produced in the early to mid-1990s as part of the LaserJet series by Hewlett Packard ....
in 1992. The Bitronics and Centronics interfaces were superseded by the IEEE 1284

IEEE 1284

IEEE 1284 is a standard that defines bi-directional parallel communications between computers and other devices. In the 1970s, Centronics developed the now-familiar printer parallel port that soon became a de facto standard....
compatibility mode. The original Centronics implementation called for the busy lead to toggle with each received line of data (busy by line), whereas IEEE 1284 calls for busy to toggle with each received character (busy by character). Some host systems or print servers may use a strobe signal with a relatively low voltage output or a fast toggle. Any of these issues might cause no or intermittent printing, missing or repeated characters or garbage printing. Some printer models may have a switch or setting to set busy by character; others may require a handshake adapter.