Intelligentleman Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 Generally speaking, are these still functional? If so, what kind of font did it print? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BBWW Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 Very basic thermal printer. Not good for much but it did work. They may still work if you can find rolls of thermal paper...anything printed in 1983 on it is bound to be unreadable now...they notoriously fade. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Rider Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 I attended high school in the 80’s. The school system had just started using computers to generate our report cards using state of the art thermal printers. All the grades have now faded away. So I just use the opportunity to remember things as I see fit - straight A’s. You never know, maybe they were using an Aquarius!?! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Intelligentleman said: Generally speaking, are these still functional? If so, what kind of font did it print? i use mine. If you go to Staples you can buy Thermal fax paper on the roll. Just cut the roll in half and its a perfect fit for the printer. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Intelligentleman said: Generally speaking, are these still functional? If so, what kind of font did it print? Here is a video of it printing to show you the Font 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intelligentleman Posted February 16, 2021 Author Share Posted February 16, 2021 Thank you that’s awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 2 minutes ago, Intelligentleman said: Thank you that’s awesome! Gave me an excuse to turn the Aquarius on tonight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 17 hours ago, rietveld said: Here is a video of it printing to show you the Font Fantastic ! ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intelligentleman Posted February 16, 2021 Author Share Posted February 16, 2021 Anyone have any idea what the intended use of this thing was? People supposed to be typing and printing their documents on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MattelAquarius Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 On 2/16/2021 at 4:08 PM, Intelligentleman said: Anyone have any idea what the intended use of this thing was? People supposed to be typing and printing their documents on this? Good question. I wrote a letter to my grandfather using that printer, and he (half) jokingly complained about the receipt sized paper. That's why I was excited to see Crimac advertising an 80 column printer in their initial brochures, but I believe it was dropped later. I later presumed they were going to modify or provide and adapter for a different off-the shelf printer. Edit: But really, Mattel thought it was an easy and cheap way to give a 40 column printout to match the display. Perfect for screen captures and Listing prints, but not good for much else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intelligentleman Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 1 minute ago, MattelAquarius said: Good question. I wrote a letter to my grandfather using that printer, and he (half) jokingly complained about the receipt sized paper. That's why I was excited to see Crimac advertising an 80 column printer in their initial brochures, but I believe it was dropped later. I later presumed they were going to modify or provide and adapter for a different off-the shelf printer. Ok good. Glad it's not just me. That said, I still appreciate the novelty of it. And, I'd find limited use for it - I'm sure of it. I've got two small kids who would get a kick out of it. Printing "secret" messages and whatnot. Although, isn't the paper it uses full of BPA? But the other thing I'm interested in doing with it is writing a program on the Aquarius... a game of sorts... that does all kinds of things with the attached accessories. Imagine playing a simple text adventure when you trigger the printer to print out some interesting message that you can then use to progress further in the game? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 5 minutes ago, MattelAquarius said: Good question. I wrote a letter to my grandfather using that printer, and he (half) jokingly complained about the receipt sized paper. That's why I was excited to see Crimac advertising an 80 column printer in their initial brochures, but I believe it was dropped later. I later presumed they were going to modify or provide and adapter for a different off-the shelf printer. Edit: But really, Mattel thought it was an easy and cheap way to give a 40 column printout to match the display. Perfect for screen captures and Listing prints, but not good for much else. I have a TRS80 PT210 80 column thermal printer that i have used with my Aquarius . I have a video of it on my Youtuibe page 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvdsteenoven Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 I got this book "Jouez avec Aquarius". The content is all listenings made by the Aquarius printer. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intelligentleman Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 8 minutes ago, mvdsteenoven said: I got this book "Jouez avec Aquarius". The content is all listenings made by the Aquarius printer. Fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 48 minutes ago, mvdsteenoven said: I got this book "Jouez avec Aquarius". The content is all listenings made by the Aquarius printer. That is quite the cover. Don't get me wrong - I like it. But it certainly has a style all of its own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted February 19, 2021 Share Posted February 19, 2021 On 2/16/2021 at 4:08 PM, Intelligentleman said: Anyone have any idea what the intended use of this thing was? People supposed to be typing and printing their documents on this? There are lots of practical uses for this type of printer besides a hard copy of your basic programs. In science research, if you write a program to process data you can have it print out the results to paper. In manufacturing you can print out cut sheets for the shop. Letter quality documents was not one of the intended uses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 19, 2021 Share Posted February 19, 2021 17 hours ago, mvdsteenoven said: I got this book "Jouez avec Aquarius". The content is all listenings made by the Aquarius printer. i like the book 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loudscotsbloke Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 I have the thermal printer, but I also have the colour printer/plotter. Its not thermal, and uses small coloured pens and ink to draw on to standard paper. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 32 minutes ago, Loudscotsbloke said: I have the thermal printer, but I also have the colour printer/plotter. Its not thermal, and uses small coloured pens and ink to draw on to standard paper. i have only seen those in ads, awesome to see someone who has one 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rietveld Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 33 minutes ago, Loudscotsbloke said: I have the thermal printer, but I also have the colour printer/plotter. Its not thermal, and uses small coloured pens and ink to draw on to standard paper. the shape matches the computer perfectly 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 4 minutes ago, rietveld said: i have only seen those in ads, awesome to see someone who has one It’s a really interesting unit. If you’re interested in it, I’ve got a scan of its manual I took from my unit. It’s got some markings on some pages, but enjoy it! I believe this is the first time it’s been posted here as well. 4-Color Printer Manual.pdf 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 51 minutes ago, Loudscotsbloke said: I have the thermal printer, but I also have the colour printer/plotter. Its not thermal, and uses small coloured pens and ink to draw on to standard paper. Great to see you here! That's a gorgeous printer: small, quiet, and fun to demonstrate for people who have never seen a pen plotter in action before. It uses an Alps plotter mechanism which was shared by other home computer printers of the time, such as the Atari 1020. As much as I love the 1020, though, I think the Aquarius version of this printer has the better design; it's a very nice cosmetic match for the system. Besides the problem of finding (fresh) replacement pens, the biggest issue with these printers nowadays is that the plastic pinion gears on the stepper motors have cracked from age. One of our members is currently offering replacement gears made of brass, which should be a permanent solution to this problem. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 One of the benefits of pen plotters is high quality vector graphics. I'm impressed that aquarius basic has vector pen plotting commands. Anyone know if that is common to microsoft basic or specific to the Aquarius? Any other Aquarius software that outputs vector plots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Games For Your Intellivision Posted February 22, 2021 Share Posted February 22, 2021 On 2/17/2021 at 4:08 AM, Intelligentleman said: Anyone have any idea what the intended use of this thing was? People supposed to be typing and printing their documents on this? I think that the general use of 40 column printers 'back in the day' was to print out basic listings of programs. Some people prefer to debug programs on paper rather than on a terminal. I believe (pretty sure) that the Aquarius printer was the same printer that was used with the Keyboard component, just rebadged. Perhaps there were cosmetic differences. I don't know for sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted February 22, 2021 Share Posted February 22, 2021 6 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said: I believe (pretty sure) that the Aquarius printer was the same printer that was used with the Keyboard component, just rebadged. Perhaps there were cosmetic differences. I don't know for sure. Do you refer to the Intellivision keyboard component? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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