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options for printer on classic computers


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7 hours ago, Paul Lambert said:

I have been looking into printers as well. What I want to ask about are thermal printers. Do they necessarily need thermal paper, or is there some mechanism by which they print onto ordinary typing paper or accordion tractor paper as well?

 

No.  Thermal printers use heat to cause a chemical reaction in the "paper".  There is no mechanism to make them work with ordinary typing paper, unless you are also a closet chemist, and want to apply the thermal sensitive chemical coating to said paper first.  (I have made my own photopaper in the past using unflavored gelatin, would not recommend. Not an easy task.)

 

Depending on how hot the thermal element gets, the thermal printer might be able to do some interesting things for you though.  There are interesting thermal-sensitive foils intended for scrapbookers. Using some scotch tape, and and some folded over corners, it might be possible to coax your thermal printer to selectively heat the foil against cardstock to get pretty gold, silver, et--- transfer images.


Take for instance, this stuff.

 

Since you can do this with a laser printer, it should be doable with your thermal printer too.  Just sandwich your foil with whatever paper you want to transfer to, then run it through. See what happens.

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11 hours ago, Paul Lambert said:

I have been looking into printers as well. What I want to ask about are thermal printers. Do they necessarily need thermal paper, or is there some mechanism by which they print onto ordinary typing paper or accordion tractor paper as well?

You need thermal paper, there is no getting away from that, as the print head is a matrix of heat elements.  Bummed, when my old Atari 822 lost an element (should re-check the wiring one day).  If you've the DIY skill, you may be able to use regular paper if you "could" add a wax (thermal) ribbon feed in front of the head.

 

A wee while ago I purchased an old PoS (Point of Sale) Star Micronics SPXXX (forgot the model number).  Thought it would be good for program listings etc.  They are super cheap and they offer two print modes a line mode and a page mode (that was the part which made me think they were old style printers).  On reviewing the manual the print codes seemed to match the old Esc/P/P2 codes from Epson (no sign of PCL or Post Script), so it would be just learning the codes to embed for print styles.  Think I did a test print when I got it.  Should add I had to check the rear of the printer to confirm it had a Centronics interface.  Got side tracked with my old Epson's, so not confirmed everything is compatible for older computers.

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On 4/17/2021 at 1:30 AM, Keatah said:

Anyone care to briefly highlight the differences between Epson MX and Epson FX?

For the old FX series, I think the main difference was additional print styles (proportional, italic etc). 

 

The modern (D)FX line has extra fonts (NLQ) and is really fast.  Quite rugged for modern standards (not that you'd guess from the plastic used).

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