What is a buffer chip and why do I need it?
A buffer chip is kind of like a fuse box between your magstripe reader and the parallel port. If you mis-wire your reader, wire a battery directly to the reader, drop your reader into a pond while connected or somehow do a Very Bad Thing(tm), the buffer will get fired and not your parallel port/motherboard/computer. The buffer chip is used with the parallel port adapter because the adapter is very generic. It makes no assumptions about the type of reader or device that is connected to it. Thus it needs to protect the computer from this strange device. A buffer is not used with the El Cheapo parallel port adapter. This is because this adapter is made specifically for the Omron V3A-4. Since I know the electrical characteristics of this reader, and I only plan to use the device for the Omron reader, I don’t need a buffer the inputs.
Related Questions
- When loading the buffer data for MC68HC711D3, we noticed that buffer start from 0000 whereas EPROM region in chip is from F000. Can you explain why?
- Does anyone have a really good recipe for double chocolate chip cookies that they’ve tried and know is good?
- What type of buffer chip do I use for the parallel port adapter?
