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Free Laser & Dot Matrix printers

K

kb2syd

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
1,853
Location
Wantage, NJ
Anyone need any?

Dot Matrix of differring makes models and quality. Oki, Citizen, Radio Shack, others...

Several OLDER laser printers (of the original vintage, 300 dpi) in unknown condition.

They are in Wantage, NJ. Free if you pick them up, or pay for shipping and a few $$ to cover packing and paypal's vig.

Someone must need them.

Kelly
 
K,

I truly wish you luck.

I've had to scrap DMPs, like Rolands and Panasonics, both narrow and wide carriages, that I'd had since they were new because I couldn't even GIVE them away. I even offered to arrange local delivery to anyone that wanted one. I ended up keeping one.

A new ribbon, a little rail polishing was all they ever required and they worked and worked and worked.

I have never been one to be "sentimental" about hardware, but, it was mighty hard handing over a PR-1215, working perfectly, to the scrap collector.

Just as an aside, I can put anyone around MN in touch with someone trying to find a home for a fully working Tandy DWII with extra wheels and ribbons.

Unlike these current "Oh, gee, pretty colour, use-up-the-ink-and-throw-the-whole-unit-away" inkjet (mostly) crap printers, the DMP's NLQ was just as good and it SOUNDED like a printer.

Sorry for the rant and I hope you find them all homes.
 
I know all about the pain of scrapping. I had 22 486 boxes that no one wanted. I scrapped them. Made a pretty good chunk of change too. Took the sheet steel one place and the boards/chips to another. I still have 6 or 7 laying around.

I had plenty of oh-yeah-if-you-drop-them-off kind of responses, but I wasn't about to drive several hours with a van load of stuff for negative return.
 
Did you know that Windows XP got drivers for several of the dot matrix printers? It got at least drivers for my old Star dot matrix printer. To bad I doesn't have the automatic paper feeder for it.

To bad you live far away from where I live.
 
I wish I could find working XP drivers for my NEC Silentwriter 610+. It's quick, very quiet and the toner never seems to run out. But I can only use it on ME/98/95 :(



BG
 
What Radio Shack printers do you have? I need one like I need a hole in my head, but I would kind of like to collect one from the TRS-80 era when I used them back in the day, just to "complete" my collection. Let me know what you have.

Is it possible to even use these older printers anymore - what, with dried out printer ribbons and no replacements?
 
Lohmeyer said:
What Radio Shack printers do you have? I need one like I need a hole in my head, but I would kind of like to collect one from the TRS-80 era when I used them back in the day, just to "complete" my collection. Let me know what you have.

Is it possible to even use these older printers anymore - what, with dried out printer ribbons and no replacements?
Click to expand...
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Where are ya? I've got a few R-S printers; surprisingly, you can still get ribbons for many printers, and in desperation you can always improvise.
 
Lohmeyer said: "Is it possible to even use these older printers anymore ...?"
Click to expand...
I see that Office Depot has some ribbons. 18 bucks though - oh well, they last a long time. Actually, just type PR-1215 into Google and there's your answer.

Druid said: "... someone trying to find a home for a fully working Tandy DWII with extra wheels and ribbons."
Click to expand...

Aw man, I really want a daisy wheel printer. They disappeared off the horizon so fast I could hear the door slam. I've had several really good ones that went somewhere I don't know. When I went to find a nice one again - there they were - gone. I couldn't find any reference on the net to the DWII you mentioned. Oh well, shipping to the west is probably too expensive.

Funny thing is that daisy wheel printers are often compared to laser printers as being close in quality. What are those guys smoking! They're way better because they actually leave an impression - just like real printing.
 
Even the best laser (or inkjet) printers still can't do multipart forms. A lot of businesses are still using impact for that reason. Oh yeah, and how come we still put 'cc' at the bottom of the page when carbon paper has been extinct for a couple of decades?

BTW, when I get nostalgic for a real printer, I can always crank up my Kaypro-badged Spinwriter to remind me why we used to keep 'em in soundproof enclosures. I just wish I still has the same printwheels (thimbles) that I once had. My favorite was this real pretty script wheel...I kinda miss that one.

--T
 
Terry Yager said:
Even the best laser (or inkjet) printers still can't do multipart forms. A lot of businesses are still using impact for that reason. Oh yeah, and how come we still put 'cc' at the bottom of the page when carbon paper has been extinct for a couple of decades?

BTW, when I get nostalgic for a real printer, I can always crank up my Kaypro-badged Spinwriter to remind me why we used to keep 'em in soundproof enclosures. I just wish I still has the same printwheels (thimbles) that I once had. My favorite was this real pretty script wheel...I kinda miss that one.

--T
Click to expand...
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I've got a Technical/Math Times Roman thimble here - ya want it?
 
The only 300 DPI laser I still have here is an Epson actionlaser 1500 I purchased mew in the mid 1990's. That unit is upgraded to 5MB RAM and is a spare. I mostly use my NEC Superscript 870 in my room and a HP 4SI Postscript in the basement lab. I also have a 4/600 Apple Laser printer, and an old Apple inkjet (need a bc-02? cart for that).

I have a 3 different Commodore dot matrix printers along with an apple imagewriter that see little use (dead ribbons on the c64 printers).

The only upgrades I kind of want are the duplexer for the HP 4SI, 4MB proprietary RAM upgrade for the 4/600, and a PostScript upgrade (or network upgrade) for the NEC (and bottm sheet feeder).
 
MikeS, I'm in San Jose, CA. I updated my profile so it's more obvious. ;-) What exact model printer(s) do you have. I don't even remember the model I used back in the '80s but I know it was one of the nicer Radio Shack DMPs'. Or it just seemed that way back then.
 
Unknown_K said:
The only upgrades I kind of want are the duplexer for the HP 4SI,....
Click to expand...

I have a HP 4SI. It's a work horse printer (and I have the duplexer, full mem and Postcript - barely 120K pages printed on it - it's still an infant), but where can you get cartridges for them anymore. The last couple I bought went bad due to expiration dates and had horrible output. The toner gets moisture build up or otherwise goes bad. Maybe a DIY refill kit would be ideal with fresh toner.

Back on topic, Kelly, please let me know what Radio Shack printers you have. As I said, I am interested in getting a circa 1980's Radio Shack DMP.

Thanks.
Mike
 
Lohmeyer said:
I have a HP 4SI. It's a work horse printer (and I have the duplexer, full mem and Postcript - barely 120K pages printed on it - it's still an infant), but where can you get cartridges for them anymore. The last couple I bought went bad due to expiration dates and had horrible output. The toner gets moisture build up or otherwise goes bad. Maybe a DIY refill kit would be ideal with fresh toner.

Back on topic, Kelly, please let me know what Radio Shack printers you have. As I said, I am interested in getting a circa 1980's Radio Shack DMP.

Thanks.
Mike
Click to expand...

The toner I got with mine would streak a bit (it had been refilled by a 3rd party before I got it), so I purchased a brand new HP made toner for $10 shipped ($1 + shipping on ebay) and it works 100%. The box was never opened so the toner was protected, even has the shipping label to send the old toner back to HP for recycling. I would think any carts sitting outside of their box and protective wrapper go bad after a while. Will go look at the toner box to see if there is an epiration date on it anywhere.

I refilled my NEC 870 toner from kits I got on ebay, it was easy and the printer works fine.
 
I've got a Diablo Hitype daisywheel sitting in my shop that I've been trying to give away for a year. It seems that everyone likes the boxes with blinking lights, but real period peripherals are just so much junk.

I'm not going to scrap it, though. A couple of the Diablo Systems founders and I were good friends and I'm not going to dishonor them by treating their product as garbage.
 
People tend to collect plenty of machines but not printers for some reason. Since I collect old apps it is nice to be able to use those apps and print the results.

The cool part about getting my HP 4Si (for free and local, owner helped me put it in my trunk too) is that it is postscript, has a parralel port, ethernet port, tokenring card, and Apple Appletalk port. So basically every old rig I have can connect to it, and postscript means just about anything can print to it.

I also have a habbit of collecting old tape drives, removable media drives, etc because I want to be able to read anything that might have been connected to the machines I own.

Old monitors and printers seem to be the 1st stuff that is recycled.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I've got a Diablo Hitype daisywheel sitting in my shop that I've been trying to give away for a year.
Click to expand...
The shipping is probably too expensive but my interest prompted me to Google that model because I couldn't remember what it looked like. It seems that there is very little information on the web about printers. You can search images (for eg) on any system unit, but printeres? ... brings up a blank every time. /bummer
 
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