Best Atari printer for my 800

[segasaturn]

Thanks for helping in advance everyone! I have my trusty Atari 800 computer with Atari writer and I had a serious question. Whats the best first party (Atari/sio cable) printer available? I like a dot matrix, and I was looking at the Atari 1025 printer. It seems pretty good. Does it use regular dot matrix paper? Are the ribbons pretty easy to find/replace? I assume there not the same ribbons as what a type writer uses right(sorry if its a stupid question). Any help is greatly appreciated.

[DavidMil]

Please, don't beat your printer.

 

Personally I've always preferred Epson printers for use with all my Atari computers (unless I was doing color graphics).

 

David

[+slx]

I‘d second the Epson recommendation. SIO to Centronics interfaces are still quite cheap and you‘ll get better print quality. I do have a 1029 (which seems to be scarce in the US) and the print quality is inferior compared to the Epson FX-80.

 

It depends whether you‘re after a pure Atari setup or good print quality.

 

 

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[scitari]

My favorite printer for the Atari 800 is the 820. It looks lovely on top of an 810 drive. You can still get paper and ribbons for it. See the end of this AA thread. I also have a blog post on replacing the ribbon for an 820.

 

Of course, it depends on what you want to do with the printouts. The 820 does use 4" paper rolls so it might not be for you. They are also hard to find in good condition. I have also posted about the 1020 plotter which is fun.

 

Here is my setup

 

[Gunstar]

With a cheap Centronics standard interface, like the Supra/Mpp Microprint, which I have, the 825 can be used with it too, if you want a printer that matches the 800 line, and the 825 is was made by Centronics. The 1025 is direct connect SIO of course, and was made by Okidata. The Epson FX-80 was of course the standard that quality printers went by, Centronics the standard interface. All three are good choices for 9-pin dot-matrix. But with the Centronics-to-SIO interface that opens up the possibility of all Centronics port, Epson compatible printers upto and including the early laser and inkjet printers. I personally have a Pansonic KX-P2023 which is a 24-pin printer that is Epson and Centronics compatible, and it has quite and near-letter-quality modes. I recommend it, mine is around 30 years old and still working great. Whatever you get, as long as you make sure it is Epson FX-80 compatible, and a well-known quality brand, you'll be fine, with a Centronics Adapter. Direct SIO then go with your first choice in the 1025 or the XMM801 by Atari.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Gunstar

[ClausB]

[_The Doctor__]

XMM or SMM 801 worked just fine, but I used epson, panasonic, star, tandy, and okidata, depending on color needs and iron on transfers..

[DavidMil]

ClausB,

What a waste of a LaserJet 4Si. I never met one that didn't have at least 1 million pages printed. Other than a full maintenance kit,

about the only thing that ever went bad was the laser assembly.

 

David

[+bob1200xl]

The 1025 uses pin-feed paper. 8 1/2 x 11, I think. The tractor width can only be adjusted a little, like 1 inch on the right tractor. The ribbons are easy to find. They look just like typewriter ribbons and I think you can get colors and such.

 

It is slow and has no graphics capability.

 

If you are going to something more substantial, get an HP laser. If you just want graphics, get an EPSON FX-80 or so.

 

Bob

[+mytek]

Of course you'll need an older HP Laser printer if you plan on printing directly to it from an SIO to parallel adapter. Otherwise if it only has USB, you'll need to use printer emulation from APE or similar.

[Kyle22]

If you have an Atari XMM801, just use a hex or sector editor and replace the ^L with ^V.

 

Easy.

 

I have printed from TLW to my (Networked the the XP machine [attached to the other end of the SIO cable]) Dell M5200N (Lexmark T630, [same thing).

It is decently compatibly, but I don't know about graphics.

 

Epson JX-80's are BEAUTIFUL, as are Star Micronics NX-1000r printers. These were some of the best dot matrix COLOR printers of the day.

 

They work well with DaisyDot, and of course PicPrint Pro... Which I sadly lost. I hope I will some day find it, or maybe Mike has it and will stumble across it.

 

I only hope, but it's unlikely... Sorry Mike.

 

It was in TurboBASIC (compiled). I made a demo version that is out there.

 

I put a heavily obfuscated message in there that would show on the screen and the paper.

 

I can't hack it out. I did all kinds of crazy things to it to prevent anyone from de-compiling it. It seems that my own 'protection' came back around and bit me in the ass.

 

I have NEVER released software with ANY type of protection since that happened.

 

I learned my lesson, did you Pete?

 

 

 

I had a much newer version of the pro version. (I only asked $15.00 [i think] for it.). I sold ONE copy of it.

Carolyn Hoglin (remember her?) did a review of it BITD.

 

I spoke with her on the phone a few years ago. Yes, I 'Cold Called her.' I really don't like doing that, but it was well worth the initial fear of the cold call. She was very nice and sounds like a sweet woman.

 

Carolyn, if you read this, YOU GO GIRL!

 

If you find it... You know what to do. I am always here or on my BBS (which is now Networked).

Address in my sig.

 

 

If anyone knows anything more about this, please contact me.

 

Mike *MAY* have a copy somewhere, but WHEN is he gonna find it?

 

Exactly ONE person bought this disk from me. That person apparently gave it to Carolyn to review. Maybe I sent her one for free, I don't remember.

 

This is potentially one of the rarest Atari programs that exist.

 

Please help me at least get the executable back. The source code is likely gone forever.

 

Thanx

 

(This is all what that awful 'YEMACYB' did, but preferred to run under SDX.)

 

Easier to use, handles more picture types, automatically analyses some of them to know how to load them. Designed for SDX. This runs rings around the BASIC program on a boot disk. YEMACYB was Obnoxious, SLOW, you name it awful.

 

Of course

 

 

.

[DavidMil]

Of course you'll need an older HP Laser printer if you plan on printing directly to it from an SIO to parallel adapter. Otherwise if it only has USB, you'll need to use printer emulation from APE or similar.

 

We used to have a LaserJet II that worked beautifully with our Atari computers. Some people say you needed a special cartridge to use the

LJII with Atari's but that was only if you wanted to take full advantage of the printers capabilities.

 

David

[TGB1718]

When I bought my 800, many moons ago, these devices weren't available and the 850 interface was prohibitively expensive, so I built a little interface

which plugged into joystick ports 3 and 4, wrote a small machine code program that sat in Page 6 to handle the comm's and I could use any

Centronics printer, I had Epsom FX and LX 80 printers which worked fine. I re-wrote the software to use ports 1 and 2 when I bought a 130XE.

Even worked with Atari-Writer

[DavidMil]

When I bought my 800, many moons ago, these devices weren't available and the 850 interface was prohibitively expensive, so I built a little interface

which plugged into joystick ports 3 and 4, wrote a small machine code program that sat in Page 6 to handle the comm's and I could use any

Centronics printer, I had Epsom FX and LX 80 printers which worked fine. I re-wrote the software to use ports 1 and 2 when I bought a 130XE.

Even worked with Atari-Writer

 

I don't suppose you have any idea what happened to that program? I'd like to have a look at it. Just curious...

 

DavidMil

[Kyle22]

I'd LOVE to see that. And also hack it for XL/XEs on ports 1 & 2.

 

 

Edit: I initially forgot about those Tramiel bastard children.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Kyle22

[TGB1718]

I will have a look for the source, unfortunately a lot of the disks that had the source code have degraded, I'm in the process of runnung through them, but

due to the poor state of some them it's requiring many head cleans.

 

Just a further note, when I bought my 130XE it was a pain to keep removing the joysticks to use the printer so I built a board that plugged into the

backplane of the 130XE, I also put a full RS232 chip on this board which then gave me Centronics and RS232 capability.

The software was written to overwrite the handler for Printer in the OS.

Code copied OS to RAM, switched out the ROM, overwrote the P: handler in RAM, so it worked with any software without issue.

I still have the board, although it never got finished (in box, etched circuit board).

 

Will post a photo if anyone would like a look, I think one logic chip is missing though.

[TGB1718]

River Patroller: As you can guess from my last post, I did convert it for my 130XE, so would be fine on an XL too.

 

Fingers crossed I can find a working disk with it on.

[BillC]

I noticed that Brother has a laser printer with parallel port and Epson FX850 emulation. It may be discontinued soon as I notice it has low availability in the US and is being discounted for CDN$149,99 @ staples.ca and amazon.ca.

 

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL5000D

[+slx]

I noticed that Brother has a laser printer with parallel port and Epson FX850 emulation. It may be discontinued soon as I notice it has low availability in the US and is being discounted for CDN$149,99 @ staples.ca and amazon.ca.

 

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL5000D

I still remember vividly how sensational the first cheap SLM laser printers for the ST were and now theres a laser printer for the 8-bits! (And it was on sale for 89 recently.)

[ACML]

I noticed that Brother has a laser printer with parallel port and Epson FX850 emulation. It may be discontinued soon as I notice it has low availability in the US and is being discounted for CDN$149,99 @ staples.ca and amazon.ca.

 

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL5000D

Are you saying a Brother HL-L5000D can be hooked up to an Atari 850 or P: R: Connection and work like a dot matrix printer to include EPSON FX graphics? So, Print Shop will work on this printer? WOW! , I need one!

[+Allan]

I noticed that Brother has a laser printer with parallel port and Epson FX850 emulation. It may be discontinued soon as I notice it has low availability in the US and is being discounted for CDN$149,99 @ staples.ca and amazon.ca.

 

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL5000D

I tried ordering one. It's "Out of Stock".

 

Allan

[+David_P]

Staples (at least, Staples Canada) has them for online ordering...

[Alfred]

I‘d second the Epson recommendation. SIO to Centronics interfaces are still quite cheap and you‘ll get better print quality. I do have a 1029 (which seems to be scarce in the US) and the print quality is inferior compared to the Epson FX-80.

 

It depends whether you‘re after a pure Atari setup or good print quality.

 

 

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i always liked my 1029, I thought it printed fine. I was under the impression it was mostly only available in Canada, cuz we never saw the 1025 that I can recall. Later I got a Panasonic 1091 and then some wide carriage from work which I still have. I'll have to look at it so see the name, it takes 11x15 fanfold, prints at something like 240cps. I thought it was amazing at the time, not sure if I can still get ribbons for it though.

[+Stephen]

Are you saying a Brother HL-L5000D can be hooked up to an Atari 850 or P: R: Connection and work like a dot matrix printer to include EPSON FX graphics? So, Print Shop will work on this printer? WOW! , I need one!

Oh man - if Print Shop stuff would work with it, I'd be very interested.

[+David_P]

 

i always liked my 1029, I thought it printed fine. I was under the impression it was mostly only available in Canada, cuz we never saw the 1025 that I can recall. Later I got a Panasonic 1091 and then some wide carriage from work which I still have. I'll have to look at it so see the name, it takes 11x15 fanfold, prints at something like 240cps. I thought it was amazing at the time, not sure if I can still get ribbons for it though.

 

We bought an 800, 810, 850 and 825 in '82 (as I recall); the bottom pin on the 825 was broken, so we were offered an "upgrade" - trade in the 850 and 825 for a 1025. That was in Montreal. The 1025 was utterly indestructible and kept going and going and going; if only it could have done graphics...