1027 - So sad

[Bryan]

I just got a bunch of A8 stuff including a minty boxed 1027. Of course when I touched the printhead the letters came off as goo on my finger. This was actually a cute little printer to watch as it chugged away.

[BDW]

RIP little printer..... May this serve as a lesson to you... dont touch the printhead!

[Bryan]

Umm...

 

It doesn't make any difference. My point was the printhead had turned to goo (as all 1027 printheads have done or are in the process of doing).

[BDW]

as all 1027 printheads have done or are in the process of doing.

 

That's why you dont touch it.

 

 

EDIT: Am I incorrectly assuming that the printer worked before you touched it, or was it already gooified beyond repair?

Edited August 31, 2009 by brandondwright

[Bryan]

I'm sorry, my original post was vague.

 

This one was DOA because the print head was already toast. What I meant was that I used to enjoy watching (and waiting) while my old 1027 printed.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Bryan

[BDW]

I'm sorry, my original post was vague.

 

This one was DOA because the print head was already toast. What I meant was that I used to enjoy watching (and waiting) while my old 1027 printed.

 

I see. Thanks for reiterating.

[+remowilliams]

Yeah, all the printwheels are disintegrating or have already done so. Used to have a 1027 back in the day, still remember that new printer smell and watching it clack along.

[puppetmark]

Yeah, all the printwheels are disintegrating or have already done so. Used to have a 1027 back in the day, still remember that new printer smell and watching it clack along.

 

 

I wonder if a set of molds could be carefully made from a set of still intact printwheels. I would think there should be a way of making new ones from some kind of liquid rubber if some kind of mold exsists. Maybe freezing the wheels would make them solid enough to get a mold made. Does anyone have experience with anything like this?

[Curt Vendel]

Check with B&C Computervisions (www.myatari.com) and/or Best Electronics (www.best-electronics-ca.com) and see if they have new replacement heads in stock.

 

It is possible to make new molds, if its done in a soft rubber or dense silicone rubber, the mold would only be able $800-$1200, it if has to be done in a tradition aluminum cavity mold, its gonna run around $5000 or so.

 

 

 

Curt

[+remowilliams]

IIRC, the supplier that had a bunch of the heads chucked them all because they had disintegrated.

[Curt Vendel]

We all tend to forget and have taken for granted that the lifespan of these products was a shelf life of 3-5 years max. and we are talking about products that are now over 25 years old, so it is not hard to accept and understand that certain components and elements of a product are not just failing, but literally evaporating. This stuff isn't going to last forever.

 

 

Curt

 

IIRC, the supplier that had a bunch of the heads chucked them all because they had disintegrated.

[+remowilliams]

We all tend to forget and have taken for granted that the lifespan of these products was a shelf life of 3-5 years max. and we are talking about products that are now over 25 years old, so it is not hard to accept and understand that certain components and elements of a product are not just failing, but literally evaporating. This stuff isn't going to last forever.

Very true. I'm still amazed every time I boot up an A8, C64, TI, etc. 5.25" disk and it loads.

[+orpheuswaking]

Brad at Best Electronics actually trashed a huge load of brand new replacement heads because they were disintegrating in their packaging (And I have never know that man to throw ANYTHING away I would hazard a guess B&C are the same... Sad as I got a BIN never used 1027 that's sitting here useless.

[Laemeur]

Aw, man. What a bummer. I was actually considering picking up one of those, but I had no idea until this thread that they were rotting away like this. Is it a universal condition, or were there maybe some batches of the print heads that were a slightly different compound that aged better?

[Bryan]

We need some print heads made out of silicone rubber. That should last 100 years.

[MEtalGuy66]

It's universal.. The rubber just doesnt last.. The ink might also help the process along..

 

Anywayze, dont sweat it.. 1027s are garbage.. its not actually any sort of decent printer mechanism.. Its an automated rubber stamp.. Get an 850 interface, and a nice vintage Epson FX or MX series, or an old IBm prowriter, or star/gemeni.. Or whatever you want.. I use Epson FX-980s.. Fully backward compatable with the old epson command set, and it prints at over 500cps...

[Bryan]

Oh I know. It's not about preserving a marvel of technology; it's about one of the first Atari peripherals to fail in a permanent way.

[yorgle]

Despite its mechanical and performance shortcomings, I've always loved the 1027 for its compact design. They still make great cases for projects and mods, e.g., I'm in the process of converting one of mine into a document scanner.

[Urchlay]

I wore out my 1027 in high school... For whatever reason, back then, high school teachers mostly refused to accept papers/assignments/whatever if they were done on dot-matrix printers (I had one teacher say "you're not allowed to use a computer, but typewriters are OK"). The 1027's output looked typewritten, I never got a complaint.

 

After a couple of years, it developed a glitch, where every once in a while it'd print a garbage character made of the halves of two adjacent characters. This got worse until it became impossible to ever print a whole page without it happening... Does that sound like the printhead wearing out? (Not that it matters, at this late date, but I always wanted to know why my poor 1027 died)

[ivop]

Looked at my 1027 today (which I got in a bulk package once; never used it myself) and the head almost fell apart by just looking at it Anyway, I tried freezing it as mentioned earlier. I froze the whole 1027 and it helped a little bit, i.e. maybe just enough to make a mold out of it. Meanwhile, it has warmed up again and is all gooey and fell apart, but perhaps somebody could freeze a "fresh" replacement and make a urethane rubber mold out of it. It's not that expensive. Maybe $20-$30.

[idavis]

I wore out my 1027 in high school... For whatever reason, back then, high school teachers mostly refused to accept papers/assignments/whatever if they were done on dot-matrix printers (I had one teacher say "you're not allowed to use a computer, but typewriters are OK"). The 1027's output looked typewritten, I never got a complaint.

 

After a couple of years, it developed a glitch, where every once in a while it'd print a garbage character made of the halves of two adjacent characters. This got worse until it became impossible to ever print a whole page without it happening... Does that sound like the printhead wearing out? (Not that it matters, at this late date, but I always wanted to know why my poor 1027 died)

 

That was my exact experience as well. No dot matrix, but we turned in a load of 'typed' papers printed off the old 1027. My kids can't even fathom being told that you can't use a computer to do schoolwork.

[+bf2k+]

My 1027 printhead literally flew apart while printing about a year after I got it (maybe 1985?)

[neopeius]

This thread is amazing! I can't wait to see if anyone manages to recreate a print head. Of course, it's only the mistiness of the ages which makes the 1027 look at all attractive. It was a really lousy printer. I'm typing this message faster than that thing printed.

[Bryan]

Atari's printers tended not to be very useful. The 1025 looked cool but but couldn't do any graphics which is one of the biggest reasons to own a dot matrix printer IMO. I remember how much that ticked me off when I saw guys with Star and Epson printers doing simple things I couldn't.

[kskunk]

That was my exact experience as well. No dot matrix, but we turned in a load of 'typed' papers printed off the old 1027. My kids can't even fathom being told that you can't use a computer to do schoolwork.

 

Hah, I knew I wasn't the only one. I had a typing class where the weekly "typing exercise" was the same sentence over and over. I wrote a BASIC program to fill out pages of exercises, complete with believable typos. Me and my friends handed them in with impunity.

 

It reminds me how much I miss that little printer. When I was a kid, the 1027 was fascinating to take apart. Compared to my Selectric, it was absurdly cheap and mechanically _trivial_. Yet it could still produce decent results, all because of clever software in its embedded computer. That was a good lesson for 1983 and not one you could learn from most other electronics until 1993.

 

A lot of people poke fun at Atari's "cheap" design, but it takes _far_ more creativity to design something that is very low cost and still useful, than to design something where cost is no constraint. Atari's designs are full of brilliance. I really admire the ingenuity of the 1027.

 

- KS

Edited September 6, 2009 by kskunk