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Mystery TRS-80 Printer

B

Brendan

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Messages
146
Location
Near Austin, TX
I was at Goodwill Computer Works' museum here in Austin yesterday and was looking at their Tandy rack where they had this printer:

IMG00140.jpg


Does anyone recognize it? There was no info there, and I couldn't get behind it to check for a model number. It just looks very odd compared to the other printers I grew up with (small plotters or the usual thermal, daisy-wheel, or dot-matrix form-factor).

Also, a few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Highly recommended! It was really cool to see mercury delay lines in real life - I think I had goosebumps 1/2 the time I was there.
 
Ah yes, as soon as I saw this picture the words screen printer came to mind. It's sad to be so old I remember these things. (I bought my first computer, a RS Model 1 in 1978.)
These things did screen dumps.
Here's an ad from the June 1979 RS Newsletter -

picture.php
 
If I remember correctly, it was the first printer available for the TRS-80. Uses a silver-metallic thermal roll paper. Really weird stuff and EXTREMELY hard to find paper for it! Even a bigger pain to load!!!!! Ask me how I know...
 
Thanks very much for the information! While thermal printers aren't foreign to me (our first one was the Apple SilentType), nor are special papers (the paper embedded with clay for the HP PaintJet, anyone?), this printer is news to me. The arched paper outlet around which one might tear off the sheet seems very odd to me. How does one go about installing paper into it? And the mechanism goes from a flat sheet fed from a horizontal roll into an arc? I would think that would be recipe for pain.
 
How much is the price tag on the Tandy portable disk drive and the model 100 sitting next to it? If you could pick those up, I'll pay for the cost + shipping.
 
Note that this was in a museum - items on display were not for sale. Thanks again, guys, for the info. I did some googling, but not much has shown up about this particular printer.
 
You Guys!! I knew I was relatively poor when all this stuff was originally coming out. I have never ever seen that weird screen printer thing. I thought "automatic bread making machine" myself. I do remember that weird metallic silver paper but can't remember from where.
 
My first thought was "Wow, I remember... not being born then!"... I wish I was though. Those of you lucky enough to have been alive to see the 70s and 80s eras of computing have NO IDEA how much envy vintage computer lovers born in the 90s have for your position. ;)
 
Am I the only one who remembers that the paper is called "Teledeltos" paper?

According to a Bob Pease column in Electronic Design a couple of years ago, you can still get it from these people. But it's not cheap.

Very useful stuff for two-dimensional modeling of current flow. When I was in high school, one of the experiments in physics class involved sliding air pucks charged with a high voltage across a sheet of the stuff to observe how bodies collide.

Now let me tell you how we smoked the drums on the kymographs....
 
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Brendan said:
I was at Goodwill Computer Works' museum here in Austin yesterday and was looking at their Tandy rack where they had this printer:

<pic snip>

Does anyone recognize it? There was no info there, and I couldn't get behind it to check for a model number. It just looks very odd compared to the other printers I grew up with (small plotters or the usual thermal, daisy-wheel, or dot-matrix form-factor).
Click to expand...

Woah! A bona-fide screen printer. Grab it if it's available, they're extremely rare (even if the print quality sux, and you'll never find the special aluminized paper for it today). I've only ever seen two of 'em, (one of 'em didn't work, but still...), which I donated to my friend's B&M museum, where they really belong.

--T

EDIT: Guess I'm a little trigger-happy tonight. Shoulda read the whole thread before replying...

--T
 
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Raven said:
My first thought was "Wow, I remember... not being born then!"... I wish I was though. Those of you lucky enough to have been alive to see the 70s and 80s eras of computing have NO IDEA how much envy vintage computer lovers born in the 90s have for your position. ;)
Click to expand...

Well, it truly was a time like no other. Living through the early Radio Shack years of their entries into the computer market was amazing. The prices were outlandish, but it was cutting edge and you had to pay to play. To experience exactly what it was like you only need check out the exhibits here by Billdeg in Post #14. Those pictures take me back and put a smile on my face. I had some of that stuff, the equipment, the books - how I would truly love to have a corner of a room set off just like that display, today! I sure wish I had my Model 1 back now. Maybe I should break down and buy one before they are all spoken for. Hummmm ??? Food for thought :)
 
When I was a kid, my mom would take me to the mall and I would always visit Radio Shack to play with the TRS 80's. Probably the first computer I ever used. Not sure what model, probably the Model 1 or the first Coco.
Bill
 
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