Collaborate Disseminate
In an excerpt from his book The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age, [Thomas Mullaney] explains how 1980s computer tech — at least the stuff that was …read more Continue reading Vintage Hacks for Dot Matrix Printers in China
The noise of a dot matrix printer is probably as synonymous with 1980s computing as the modem handshake would become with the desktop experience a decade or more later. But …read more Continue reading Restoring Dot Matrix Printer Cartridges For 2023
These days, we’re alerted to the rise of Bitcoin and the fall of nations via little buzzes from the smartphones in our pocket. Go back fifty years or so and it was all a bit more romantic, with noisy teletype …read more
Ink! No matter the printer you’ve got, whether it be inkjet, laser or otherwise, it’s the consumables that will send you broke. At times, the cost of Hewlett-Packard black ink has exceeded the price per volume of human blood, and shareholders around the world have rejoiced.
As a retrocomputing reprobate, …read more
Continue reading Reinking Dot Matrix Printer Ribbons Because It’s Fun, Okay
After a youth spent playing with Amigas and getting into all sorts of trouble on the school computer network, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for hardware from the 80s and 90s. This extends beyond computers themselves, and goes so far as to include modems, photocopiers, and …read more
Continue reading Arduino Converts Serial to Parallel: the Paralleloslam
Dot matrix printers are the dinosaurs that won’t go extinct. They are not unlike a typewriter with the type bars behind the ink ribbon replaced by a row of metal pins controlled by solenoids, each pin being capable of printing a single pixel. At their best they could deliver a surprising level of quality, but their sound once heard is not forgotten, because it was extremely LOUD.
[Wpqrek] bought an old dot-matrix printer, a Commodore MPS 803. Sadly it didn’t live up to the dot-matrix reputation for reliability in that it didn’t work, some of its pins weren’t moving, so …read more
It’s cold outside! So grab a copy of the Hackaday Podcast, and catch up on what you missed this week.
Highlights include a dip into audio processing with sox and FFMPEG, scripting for Gmail, weaving your own carbon fiber tubes, staring into the sharpest color CRT ever, and unlocking the secrets of cheap 433 MHz devices. Plus Elliot talks about his follies in building an igloo while Mike marvels at what’s coming out of passive RFID sensor research.
And what’s that strange noise at the end of the podcast?
Direct Download (59.2 MB MP3)
Continue reading Hackaday Podcast Ep3 – Igloos, Lidar, And The Blinking LED Of RF Hacking
These days a printer — especially one at home — is likely to spray ink out of nozzles. It is getting harder to find home laser printers, and earlier printer technologies such as dot matrix are almost gone from people’s homes even if you’ll still see a few printing multipart forms in some offices.
[Thomas Winningham] bought an old Commodore dot matrix printer in a fast food parking lot for $20. How hard could it be to get it working? How hard, indeed. Check out the video below to see the whole adventure. The principle behind the printer is simple …read more
Do you often find yourself needing to make small signs? Perhaps you’re trying to put a notice on the office fridge, but you’re just not in the mood for the usual Comic Sans-on-A4 staple today. A banner of some sort would do the trick, but… a small one, right? [Mike Ingle] has the answer – making mini-banners on old receipt printers.
[Mike] was a fan of Paint Shop in the 1980s, which among other things, enabled the printing of long banners on the popular dot matrix printers of the era. Realising that receipt printers have a similar ability to print …read more
