Dot matrix printers.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
Up until 2011, my previous employer used dot-matrix printers at POS stations (it's a large electronics retailer in the US - not Best Buy) because they were cheap, reliable, and the ink was also cheap. They switched to laser printers to make it easier for employees to print out other things at any computer in the store (inventory lists, web pages, etc.) I still remember trying to align the pre-printed receipt pages just right. Plus, we knew when someone made a sale (commissioned place, so it mattered) when we heard the noise.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
I bet there is a video on youtube that shows you how to refill these things manually. I bet all you need is a syringe and a bottle of ink. I like to use the old Shaeffer fountain pens with the plastic cartridges; I saw a web page posting where they showed you how to refill them with a syringe and a bottle of ink. In this case, the fountain pen ink in bottles is more widely available. I bet the same goes for refilling laser printer cartridges. I know there are companies that recycle the cartridges and sell them at a discount on the web. Kind regards,
David
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
Takin me back to my childhood days. I remember my dad ripping off his music catalog at 2am on his TRS-80 and that 9pin screaching away. I still have my Panasonic KX-P2123 Color Dot Matrix. Currently stored back in it's original box on a shelf. Been probably 14-15 years since I've used it. What a great machine for it's time. 360dpi, Red, Yellow, Blue, black on 1 ribbon, Had this cool "quiet mode". Photo quality graphics were pretty limited but illustration graphics and full color document printing was great.. Better than those early generation "bubble jets" I could go thru half a box of continuous pin-feed paper before the ribbon started to fade.. In draft mode could almost get a whole box. The one millwork shop I worked at had a significant part of their manufacturing control software running Clipper 87 and we couldn't get it to print on anything but the old Okis.. 20+ years old, bulk buy ribbons for cheap, and they just keep screaming away day after day. Maybe the only other printers in that shop that have been equally as reliable are the HP Laserjet 5MPs. The 2nd gen manufacturing control software that was windows based printed to them. These printers have even outlasted the big monster all in one office document systems.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
I haven't seen anything produced by Kodak in the last 15 years that I thought was worth shooting, myself. Ahh ... dot matrix, I used to love those things. It's been 15 or more years since I last had one. As for inkjet, I use the Brother MFC series units. The one I have currently has taken a lot of use, particularly the scanner, and continues to work flawlessly. As for ink, that costs me very little. I find that I can get ink cartridges for under $20 for a dozen on eBay. I haven't had to order ink in a year. My Canon photo printer, though, does need authentic cartridges (which I also get cheaper on eBay). I can't get away with generics with that one but for the Brother ... $85-$100 for the original printer unit and the paper and ink very low cost for the next year or two.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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Again, a confession: I work for Eastman Kodak Company, a manufacturer of both consumer and commercial ink-jet printers. Refilling ink cartridges may work for a while, but the quality is going to suffer over time. The orifices that spray the ink degrade due to electro-chemical effects. This leads to poor dot size control and print quality. Ultimately the cartridge will fail.
Software Zen:
delete this;In my experience, Gary is correct that over the long term the quality declines when refilling cartridges. But I usually get three or four refills per cartridge before it is noticeable and even then it may be acceptable for internal or casual applications. If you rarely print, you may also have problems with the print heads drying out. Seems to be more of a problem with refilled cartridges. Refill instructions are easy to find on the internet. Most cartridges can be refilled, but not all. You might also check out local refillers, for example in Calif the local CVS drug stores and CostCo, offer refill services. My first Epson MX80 cost close to $800. Makes inkjet cartridges look cheap!
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Speaking of CRT monitors, on the relaly cheap ones, I can hear the flyback transformer buzzing - sounds like a mosquitoe flying right next to my ear.
I need a 32 bit unsigned value just to hold the number of coding WTF I see in a day …
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They're still in use in many businesses. The venerable Okidata 320/390 series is alive and well in most small retail operations, and at least one major hardware chain. In addition to being more reliable and cheaper to feed than any "modern" printer, they have a key advantage - multipart forms. No ink jet or laser printer can work with a three-part NCR form, and quite a few businesses depend on them. I only a couple of years ago chucked my last dot matrix printer, an Epson wide-carriage (LQ-1070, I think). Cartridges for it cost $4 and lasted a year or so, compared to $120 or so for my new HP inkjet. This is progress?:mad:
Will Rogers never met me.
I have a wide-carriage Okidata Microline 395C 24-pin printer here in my office. In the automation industry, real-time records are printed to the line printer, one line at a time (try doing that with a laser or ink-jet printer...) to record plant activity. Sometimes the line printer is set into a 'bunker', in case of an 'accident' it is the 'record' of what has happened. Yep, they are still in use, and I just finished writing a Windows NT service to write to this Okidata a couple weeks ago.
I need a 32 bit unsigned value just to hold the number of coding WTF I see in a day …
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
They still use them to print pizza labels at Domino's. I think they still hand toss the pizzas there, and what that means is that the place is constantly filled with flour dust (I personally think it's a health hazard, that's how bad it is) - anyway, the only printers that last more than a few days are the dot matrix type. Inkjets fail quickly in that environment.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
"What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro." In the late 1960s the Satellite Test Center in Sunnyvale used what I think were IBM 1401 line-at-a-time drum printers. You heard a painful BRRAPP with each line printed. Lead-foil lined plywood boxes were finally devised to contain some of the noise, but I still had my guys use hearing protectors while they stood reading real-time octal feeds from an early VELA satellite. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1403.html[^] As for nostalgia, who is old enough to remember gazing in wonder at the magnetic core memory of the old SAGE AN/FSQ7 built by IBM? http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Magnetic-Core_Memory[^]
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Speaking of CRT monitors, on the relaly cheap ones, I can hear the flyback transformer buzzing - sounds like a mosquitoe flying right next to my ear.
I need a 32 bit unsigned value just to hold the number of coding WTF I see in a day …
Blake Miller wrote:
Speaking of CRT monitors, on the relaly cheap ones,
The really expensive ones had the same problem. The noise-level has dropped nicely in the last few years, with very silent fans for the desktops, and nice and quiet lcd-screens and laserprinters. Hell, even the alarm has been replaced - the old siren is now a "silent alarm" :laugh:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: if you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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PHS241 wrote:
Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak
First, a confession: I work for Eastman Kodak Company; my division makes commercial ink-jet printers. The business model in the printer industry is now based on the customer paying for usage rather than hardware. The printer mechanism is sold at or even below cost. Manufacturers make money by selling consumables. In the consumer market, the primary consumable is ink or toner. Competition is fierce, and cartridge prices are confined to a relatively narrow range. 40 pages of black and 20 pages of color is reasonable for a consumer ink-jet printer. I typically get less than that from my HP. Printers differ in how they use ink based on the type of printing you do and the type of paper. It's up to you to set those preferences each time you print in order to get the results you want. If you leave the driver set for photo paper, for example, you're going to use more ink than necessary. Setting 'draft' mode can help you economize on ink usage for day-to-day printing.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
The really big advantage those printers had was their fan fold paper. It allowed you to printer banners and even use the printer as a very inexpensive plotter that could plot images in banner wide strips and lengths to be combined into any size plot you needed.
NEVER take on a vast project with a half-vast idea.
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Speaking of CRT monitors, on the relaly cheap ones, I can hear the flyback transformer buzzing - sounds like a mosquitoe flying right next to my ear.
I need a 32 bit unsigned value just to hold the number of coding WTF I see in a day …
Yes I used to be able to hear the linescan whistle of old CRT monitors and TVs (it's about 16KHz on a PAL TV). Can't any more though. It's either old age or too many dot matrix printers in the past. Working as a sound engineer on big P.A. rigs didn't help either. There were about half a dozen big commercial dot matrix printers in the print room at a place where I once worked amongst all the other gear (and some of that was pretty noisy) It was in a soundproofed cellar and always smelt of ammonia (by-product of Diazo Printing) All the girls that worked in there wore ear defenders and communicated mostly by sign language like some Victorian textile mill. They were a friendly bunch though (Bit too friendly sometimes if you know what I mean). It was a place where rock hard grizzled welders feared to tread and very intimidating for a young apprentice (As I was at the time). But it had great air conditioning and was always at a nice constant temperature. It was the only place in the works that was air conditioned and they needed it.
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Shoe, back in the early 90's I wrote a function to print barcodes on a epson lx800 (before barcode fonts). Had to dig into the manual and learn all the "escape codes" for the epson standard - that function is still in use today to print slips for a file store. Will remember that rithmic grrrd,grrrd,grrrd till the day I croak!
So will I! I have noticed that a lot of tills and POS devices still use them for receipt printing They sure sound like it anyway and it's a very characteristic sound.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote:
still got a ringing in my ear
I have too, except mine's caused by tinnitus. I wonder if it too was a result of going to Dot Matrix concerts. ;)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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The really big advantage those printers had was their fan fold paper. It allowed you to printer banners and even use the printer as a very inexpensive plotter that could plot images in banner wide strips and lengths to be combined into any size plot you needed.
NEVER take on a vast project with a half-vast idea.
We still use and sell dot matrix printers of many different varieties where I work. Nice thing about them for us is they usually have some internal font which doesn't require a driver, making talking to them from an embedded device as easy as sending them plain ascii text. There really is nothing like the annoyingly crunchy sound of them spitting out reams of tractor feed paper, driving your cubicle neighbors crazy with the disruption to their programming mojo by stealing the quiet from the room.
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Does anyone remember them? I know inkjet and laser printers largely killed them off but it irks me how much you pay for printer cartridges. I have a Kodak ESP printer. I bought a pack of black and colour cartridges about two months ago. I've probably printed about 40pp in black and maybe 20pp in colour, yet the printer tells me I have about 20% colour ink remaining. Clearly the printer is killing my cartridge so it can force me to buy another one: thanks a lot Kodak. What makes me even more annoying is that the printer driver's software will not honour my request to print using the black cartridge only; convenient, huh? I wish I could find a decent dot matrix printer and ribbons. What I liked about them was the almost therapeutic sound of the printhead slowly working its way to and fro. I also liked them because you could run a ribbon until it was almost bone dry and in danger of shredding and a cheap ribbon gave 100s of pages before you (the owner) felt it was the right time to replace the ribbon. I never objected to getting slightly inky fingers. I also remember those little tufts of printer fluff that gathered in corners. And if the paper wrecked when it slipped off the grip wheels you could manually advance it and carry on. By Jove; those were the days. Edit: I see that you can still buy them. It seems nostalgia is alive and well. :)
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
The problem nowadays is getting the fanfold paper. My accountant still uses a dot matrix for payroll on a Windows 98 PC. Think he's got enough paper to last him for the next 3 years. On the older systems, we had to program the page size. On the newer systems (since 3.1) it is all programmed in for you.