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Tandy Supplier Question

clh333

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Joined
Feb 22, 2015
Messages
1,443
Location
Cleveland, OH, USA
Recent acquisitions include TRS printers: Line Printer V, Line Printer VI and Daisy Wheel. "Made in Japan" stamped in various spots but no identification of the manufacturer.

Epson made some IBM branded printers; Itoh made some Apple branded printers; does anyone know who made these? These things weigh a ton.

-CH-
 
Most early Tandy dot matrix printers were OEMed from Centronics. (Yeah, they did actually make printers, not just lend their name to the connector.) I *think* their Daisy Wheel was a rebranded Diablo but not 100% sure of that.
 
sorry, none of our printers were made by diablo. they made really nice printers, just not ours.

But the ribbon cart has the same funny drive belt configuration as the Diablo. Not sure if the dims are same. Guess I'll have to obtain a Diablo ribbon and find out. Printwheels are another open question.

Hope all is well with you; thanks for your response.

-CH-
 
they may be compatible.... i was in the proofing loop on the service manual and it was definitely not diablo, qume, or any of the others known in the US market. i believe it was citizen. yeah, that’s out of left field, but i recall thinking, “these guys make printers?”
 
Which model Daisy Wheel printer is it, BTW? The first DWP-I seems to have a notorious reputation, thus making the DWP-II the first common one?

Casual googling suggests ribbons and print wheels for the DWP-II and some of its successors cross-reference with Ricoh parts, but it could be that Ricoh is just the OEM for those parts, not the whole mechanism.
 
i'm referring to the DWII. very solid and quality printer--we were impressed with it. keep in mind the length of time it's been and that japanese companies merge, buyout each other, and such just like ours do.. the printer was marketed in a very similar form in japan under the OEM's name. citizen did make dot matrix printers for the japanese market at the time. the early review copies of the service manual were in very poor english so there were multiple passes. the first pass still had the OEM's name in several places.

the wp50, the first dw printer we marketed under the RS name was a piece of junk... in my opinion. :) although some companies had been making daisy wheel printers for some years, they were extraordinarily expensive. getting a good dw printer that small businesses could afford to buy was challenging i think. i wasn't in merch, but knew what was out there from reading the trades and being a computer nerd/hobbiest as well as employed by RS.
 
Update to this thread: The DWP 510 and DWP II were stored for decades in a barn in NE Tennessee; I bought them with other equipment including Model IIs and drive bays etc. and hauled them back in the van. The DWPs seemed so stiff and dirty that I didn't dare to power them up. I did a little cleaning and lube and inspected the daisy wheels to see if they were perhaps compatible with some Silver Reed wheels that fit other daisy-wheel printers. Alas, no.

Unsure of what I was looking for in the way of ribbons and wheels I posted here; my thanks again to shank and Eudimorphodon, Patrick B. and Agent Orange for your help. But the DWP II sat untested for the interim, until today when out of curiosity I powered it up. No smoke - that's always a good sign - and the whir of a fan coming up to speed as the printhead returned to the left margin. I figured it might be time to find a manual.

I got some greenbar paper loaded and powered up again, using the printwheel and ribbon that had been in the machine. I performed the self-test as described in the manual, and after a little fiddling with the "test" switch the printhead began to move. Nothing printed at first but after a few lines I began to see characters and after 15 or 20 lines the output was quite good - except for the fact that capital N was missing. Turns out it had broken off; lower-case n was still present.

Without exaggeration I can say that I was stunned; that after sitting for maybe 35 years in a barn this beast was still producing output. Not laboring, either: this damned thing is fast. Next we'll have to see if it communicates with a PC. Assuming it does, the DWP 510 and Line Printer VI are next up for inspection.

Thanks again, persons, for all your help.

-CH-
 
Works with an MS-DOS 6.22 PC. I find that the printer does not recognize ASCII 12 as form-feed and defaults to adding a line feed after an ASCII 13 is sent, so from DOS printout becomes 2-line spaced. There is a command to defeat this feature however, but it must precede any text.

-CH-
 
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