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Plain SPool Printers

I wonder if anyone has seen new printers for sale which use plain spool
ribbons? I doubt it, but I used to have an Oki 82a which used ordinary
typewritter ribbons and it ran like a tank for 15yrs. I only had to replace a
gear once. I kick myself for throwing it away because it cost s little to
operate. I've heard that supposedly in Russia folks are afraid of toner dust
and like dot matrix. So I wonder if such printers don't sell somewhere in the
world. ANyone know?


- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm http://www.facebook.com/vasjpan2
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]
 
C

Cydrome Leader

Jan 1, 1970
0
I wonder if anyone has seen new printers for sale which use plain spool
ribbons? I doubt it, but I used to have an Oki 82a which used ordinary
typewritter ribbons and it ran like a tank for 15yrs. I only had to replace a
gear once. I kick myself for throwing it away because it cost s little to
operate. I've heard that supposedly in Russia folks are afraid of toner dust
and like dot matrix. So I wonder if such printers don't sell somewhere in the
world. ANyone know?

I think the correct answer is in russia they can't afford laser printers,
or power them, or have computers fast enough to even send graphics to them
in the first place.

lots of businesses still use dot matrix printers for multi part forms.

at the one supplier I use, they actually replaced some gigantic dot matrix
printer with another that's clearly new as it's not shitted up with dirt
and smudgy hand prints. It's a Tally as I recall, so it's probably some
cutting edge 1990s technology from Genicom. All it does is print
white/yellow/pink copies of invoices all day long.

Those ones don't use the generic typewritter ribbon, but those things are
still for sale on the internet. I've not seen a typewritter ribbon in a
store in years.
 
G

Geoffrey S. Mendelson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Matthew said:
Within a couple miles of that store is one that specifically does
typewriter repair and maintenance. I'm sure they also stock the
ribbons.

Although I have not used them in 10 years, I keep two Apple ImageWriter II
printers around. They are about the only thing that will reliably feed
continous form catalog cards.

My wife is a teaching librarian (K-12), and still uses the cards. I keep
the printers around in case she asks for them to do one last run of
cards from their computerised catalog before going 100% to computers.

While many libraries have computerized catalogs, I'm sure there are small
ones that still maintain cards.

Not much use for them here for medical printers, the last time I was in
a hospital, the clerk on the way out scanned all of the papers and printed out
copies for me to take to my doctor and insurance company. I expect that
they were shreded in a few days.

Geoff.
 
C

Cydrome Leader

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jeff Liebermann said:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:30:21 +0000 (UTC),


No. They were replaced by ribbon cartridges in the mid 1980's. You
can still get dot matrix printers that use ribbon cartridges.


Yep. Slow, noisy, ugly, heavy, prints badly, rips ribbons, and has
ocassional mechanical problems (usually from internal crud buildup).
The parallel port would not hand EPP or ECP. I vaguely recall that
the serial port would only do hardware flow control and not xon/xoff,
but am not sure. I used to service those dinosaurs.

have you ever worked with Florida Data printers, by chance?
 
My oki82a ran like a tank.
Never had the ribbon jams you describe.
I even used film ribbons for slightly better print.
I gotta admit, at the time i had it, a lot of other folks had the same
printer, so I had an informal support network.

I finally did get a panasonic dot matrix to replace it, and i even bought a
ribbon reinker. And I reink my inkjet by syringe (cartridge costs $25, ink
costs $1). But in the end, I just go to Staples or Kinkos and haven't used
any of my own printers in two years. THanks in large part to the ability to
generate and mail PDF files.

- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm http://www.facebook.com/vasjpan2
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]
 
I've bene in ICUs where the EKG is stored online. When my dad wa sin the ICU
in 7/99 they were able to go back several days on the computer without paper.



- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm http://www.facebook.com/vasjpan2
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]
 
BTW, I was just looking for a 1965 ad for my house and came across $39.95
manual typerwriters and $3.95 leather brief bags (the kind lawyers now pay
$500 for)



- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm http://www.facebook.com/vasjpan2
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]
 
C

Chris Bartram

Jan 1, 1970
0
On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:30:21 +0000 (UTC),


No. They were replaced by ribbon cartridges in the mid 1980's. You
can still get dot matrix printers that use ribbon cartridges.


Yep. Slow, noisy, ugly, heavy, prints badly, rips ribbons, and has
ocassional mechanical problems (usually from internal crud buildup).
The parallel port would not hand EPP or ECP. I vaguely recall that
the serial port would only do hardware flow control and not xon/xoff,
but am not sure. I used to service those dinosaurs.


Really? The 82A would frequently jam when it came time to change
ribbon direction. The usual result was that the ribbon was torn at
one end. It was easy to fix, but irritating. Getting it to print
dark black was a problem, because the ribbon would wear so quickly.
Great for its day, but not useful today. Get a laser printer.
Back in the early 90s I worked for a fire brigade that had them as
turnout printers (so they printed out where to send a fire engine to).
They were pretty reliable, but we had to change PSU capacitors in lots
of them as they were on 24x7.
 
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