Ask a Question
or
Create a Poll
  1. Home /
  2. Questions /
  3. Computers
  4. / Computer Hardware
  5. / Printers
  6. / Printers (General)

by Nelson Mussagy on March 14th, 2004

Nelson Mussagy

Question

Help answer this question below.

What is the speed difference between a printer with an RS232 interface and a printer with a Centronics interface?

  • Like
  • Report
Share:
Other

Answers. 1 helpful answer below.

  • by Karl Plesz on July 29th, 2004

    Karl Plesz

    That depends on the interface on the printer itself.

    Printers used to use RS232 (serial), but the serial port is capable of a wide range of speeds from 2400bps to more than 115,000bps. Having said that, when printers still used serial ports, they were quite slow - but then they didn't need to be fast, the data being sent to the printer was just ASCII text.

    Centronics isn't really the name of the interface, it's the name of the connector. The interface is parallel. Parallel ports were adopted by printers because they could transfer 8 bits at a time instead of just one, making them faster. Then parallel became bi-directional, making it possible for the printer to talk back to the PC.

    So in context, the parallel interface was faster, but does not have multiple speed settings.

    Funny how history comes around in a circle - USB is just a super-fast serial port, in essence.

    • Like
    • Report

    6 comments | Post one | Permalink

Want to attach an image to your answer? Click here.

Did this answer your question? If not, then ask a new question or create a poll.

More Questions. Additional questions in this category.

You're reading What is the speed difference between a printer with an RS232 interface and a printer with a Centronics interface?

Follow us on Facebook!

Related Ads

Related Questions

Professionally Researched

ANSWERBAG BUZZ

Centronics parallel interface vs rs232 which is faster
Difference between parallel and serial ports
Rs232 to printer interface
Diference rs 232 parallel
Difference between serial printer interface and parallel printer interface

Answerbag

a Demand Media company