By: Drunkula
IIRC my first color printer was a Citizen GSX140. It had a 4-color ribbon and a 24-pin head. Was fairly nice for the time. I ended up donating it to work because they needed a dot-matrix printer for multi-part track fed paper. At that time I had a decent laser printer and had no need for track-fed.
By: rklrkl
I had the classic Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer hooked up to a BBC Micro and got it to do (greyscale) screenshots. Combine that with code to do giant coloured text at any rotated angle and I could print out warning notices to stick on my bedroom door :-) Nowadays, I've given up printing because so much of my life is digital-only now - I can't remember the last time I posted a letter (or wrote a cheque for that matter).
By: chriscox
Had an FX-80 in college (had a daisy wheel before that). But of course, by default and not without some additional cost, you couldn't get (crappy) letter quality from the printer. However, the "knowledge" (pre-conumer Internet mind you) for how to "program" the printer was available. So, off I went to create my own personal letter quality font (totally unique). Of course, when I turned in my first paper, the prof said, "what font is this?"... and "never use this again" :-)
By: sukru
In reply to <a href="https://www.osnews.com/story/140137/how-dot-matrix-printers-created-text/#comment-10441313">spiderdroid</a>.
Yes, and they still survived to this day, unlike the wheel ones.
Btw, they are quite expensive now:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/375482575866
("Oki MICROLINE 320 D2280A" in case the item gets deleted)
By: spiderdroid
In reply to <a href="https://www.osnews.com/story/140137/how-dot-matrix-printers-created-text/#comment-10441311">MarkHughes</a>.
No Sir. My first Printer was a Radioshack (Tandy) DWP series printer. The printhead had letters, Numbers, and synbols Both CAPS and lowercase, all compiled together in the form of dimple flower petals "Daisy", sort of like a typewriter. Fonts were only one size, Thats where DOt Matrix excelled, as Dot matrix printers were more versatile.
By: MarkHughes
I still have a couple of dot matrix printers, A STAR LC200 is the better one of them, It should still work and I have a box of tractor feed paper somewhere. I used to print program listings out to debug them with a pencil... lol
I will have to fire it up next time I have my Amiga out.
By: MarkHughes
In reply to <a href="https://www.osnews.com/story/140137/how-dot-matrix-printers-created-text/#comment-10441304">sukru</a>.
Don't daisywheel printers do that too ?
By: Lozrus
It was Star Micronics, I work for them now and we even still have a dot-matrix model, although mostly direct thermal now and receipt/label/ticket printers not desktop. Inkjet killed off dot-matrix in the home and (for the most part) office pretty effectively.
By: gagol2
We had Print Shop Pro with an Okidata printer to do the banners at home.
By: mebarg
Citizen gsx 190 was my first printer, it had a black ribbon and with an addition I could print with a wider ribbon in 4 colors. Using wordperfect 6.0, high quality prints were obtained even though they were very slow.
Also using Banner and continuous paper you could make long posters for birthday parties.
By: sukru
Dot matrix has the unique advantage of being able to generate carbon copies.
That is why receipts and similar official documents still use dot matrix, where you can just print 3 copies together, and then sign them with at the same time.
By: jgfenix
My first experiment with refilling ink. Was with one of these printers. I put ink in the front and the back of the tape instead of buying a new cartridge.