I had a thermal transfer typewriter/printer in the mid-80's marketed by Sears. Sears had more than one of these, but the specific one I had was the Sears 600. It was found in the 1985 Spring/Summer catalog, and was one of the first things I bought with money I earned, mowing cemeteries over the summer. Bought a VIC-20 that same summer when they were being closed out for $99 at K-mart; I wanted a Z80 machine like the TRS-80 Model 4s at school, but hey you buy what you can afford, right? Never did get into 6502 programming like I did Z80, even though I bought VICMON (still have it and the VIC-20 in the box, even though the box isn't in great shape....). Once I got a Model 4 in college the VIC-20 was pretty much left alone.
The Sears 600 had an RS-232 port for printing, and I bought an interface cable that went from the Commodore serial bus to RS-232, and it worked well. I used that typewriter all through high school and college, using it with the Model 4 on RS-232, and finally donated it to a nonprofit in 2001.
It was a thermal printer that could use either thermal paper (I built a stand to allow using fax machine rolls from a couple of pieces of plywood and a dowel) or could print to regular paper using thermal transfer ribbons.
I still have a booklet I typed up with my sequences for solving Rubik's Revenge using that typewriter/printer.
The page in the 1985 Sears Catalog:
https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1985-Sears-Spring-Summer-Catalog/0954
