Paperclip Dongle

[gozar]

Pfft, it was AtariWriter or bust for HS and College!

[ivop]

During HS it was mostly this:

 

 

Only during the last year we got a dot-matrix printer at our home

 

 

[Nervebreaker]

Hey I've got one if someone who can dissect it wants it.

[StickJock]

On 2/10/2018 at 10:05 AM, ivop said:

During HS it was mostly this:

 

 

Only during the last year we got a dot-matrix printer at our home

 

 

Look at Mr. Fancy Pants whose typewriter has a '1' key! ?

 

 

This (or something very similar - I don't remember it having the color selector - just black ink) is what I had to use until I got my Atari in '83.  I still remember what a nice, satisfying "thunk" it made when you pressed the "Shift" key!

 

I think I started out with AtariWriter, but I switched to PaperClip as soon as it found it's way into my hands!

 

Edit to add:  Actually, I remember using a Wang 2200T connected to a 132 column daisy wheel printer in '82, but that was at school.  At home, it was the old Corona typewriter until I got my 800 in the summer of '83. 

 

It was really hard to get my dad to use the One key instead of the lower case L key.  I think he also used the upper case O key instead of the Zero key.  Old habits, right?  Speaking of which, to this day, I still only use the left-side Shift key due to the poor placement of the Atari key on the 800's keyboard.  Even though it was moved on my 130XE, which became my primary due to the extra memory (320K) that I used as a Ramdisk during program development, and that was utilized by PaperClip when writing documents.  I learned to touch-type on the IBM Selectric typewriters before getting my 800 (do they still teach typing in school?), but a few years of accidentally hitting the Atari key instead of the right-shift key back in the early '80s, and now over 35 years later, I still only use the left-Shift key. 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2020 by StickJock

[zzip]

I remember using Paperclip to write a term paper in High School.   But I also remember buying a Star Micronics NX-1000 to print that term paper, because the crappy Okimate 10 I had for the 8-bit wouldn't cut it.

 

But what is weird is this was shortly after I got an ST, the NX-1000 was the printer for my ST,  I don't recall ever owning an 850 or any other parallel interface at that time,  So I don't remember how I got the Paperclip doc to the ST and was able to print it.

[Atari8guy]

Since this thread has been revived and I haven't commented on it since 2009, here is a totally random update.  I found the aforementioned missing Paperclip dongle!  Ha.

 

[sup8pdct]

One thing i can remember about paperclip was it will only work with printers on the SIO buss. Nothing on PBI or other odd interfaces (eg joystick port 2). It bypasses the OS SIO routines.  Shame really.

 

James

[ndary]

i should have a spare paperclib dongle here somehwere