Bringing Dot Matrix Printing into 2021 | Nostalgia Nerd
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- Опубліковано 30 січ 2025
- Head to www.squarespac... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NOSTALGIANERD....Dot matrix printers, you remember; they've actually been around in some form since the 1920s, but really became a useful consumer product in the 70s. Remember that screeching sound bursting out of your corner desk whilst a piece of homework, or your freshly composed CV thrashes its way out of a print head? Well, thankfully dot matrix printers were also useful for printing dirty great banners, for all the best parties you could imagine. So, in this video, armed with a brand new Epson LX350 dot matrix printer, I will perform the duty of bringing the banner back for 2020.
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Two features that really set dot matrix printers apart as they aren't available (AFAIK) on other printers:
1. The ability to produce carbon copies like a typewriter (that is, work with paper that's literally two or three (usually differently colored) sheets stuck together)
2. The ability to load "endless paper" and print it a line of a time - you brought up banner printing, but it's also useful for Application Logs in realtime. Really old-school computers used the printer as the output device, instead of a monitor. Also, why many receipt-printers use dot-matrix (well, I guess that thermal transfer is the preferred option these days) - no need to think about a specified paper size, it's "As wide as the paper is, and as long or short as you want".
Dot matrix printers are workhorses in industrial settings, run for years without much maintenance apart from the occasional ink ribbon change.
And yes, I've so many great memories of Print Shop on a Commodore 64.
"not noisy at all"
* A sweet melody of two robotic Tasmanian devils mating intensifies *
My brain wants to explode from my ear canals when that thing starts printing.
Slightly more listenable than Skrillex
@@frykasj you dare talk bad things about Skrillex, mortal?
It’s super effective!
Omg that sound. I grew up with that sound. So familiar....
Lol the noise reminds me of getting in trouble and having to go to the office at school. This is all i would hear before a lecture.
Odd pairings of sounds/smells/tastes/places are awesome.
@@MikaelMarius yeah the older i get the more everything connects my mind to the past and things i've not thought about in forever lol.
I remember printing a 200 page document on fan fold paper and you would get 50 pages in and walk away and come back and it would have jammed and printed the next 150 pages on 1 line of page 51.
That's not a jam, that's where the paper has slipped off the tracking holes, because it's stacked up too high in the output tray. Remember when you couldn't clear the printers memory? ...so it still carried on printing after you'd cancelled it on the computer, even if you had switched the printer on and off? That was annoying. I can only imagine what an utter nightmare it was in those days if you had to share a networked printer.
"What do you mean the printer ate your homework?!?!??!"
@@penfold7800 That sounds like a laser printer issue. The other types of printers didn't have a lot of memory, if any. Only laser printers stored whole pages or even documents in their internal memory. My dad's Brother network laser printer (bought about 15 years ago) is annoying like that - I've yet had to figure out a way of cancelling print jobs once they've left the computer's print spooler.
"80s stock crash" Ah yes, my favorite clipart
not stonks
Sound of my childhood. My Dad used to do his invoices every Saturday morning and for the rest of the day the house would reverberate with the sounds of an epson LQ-400 running through the print queue.
Hmm, now there's a sound I haven't heard for a while.
some are still used by businesses for printing invoices
Sound track of my yoof :D
@@richbuilds_com yup! Printing my school reports, and trying to sneak out 30 minutes of a loud obvious banner without dad hearing. That also reminds me of when i didn't know what the insert key did (neither did my mom at the time) and would restart our old 286 to fix it when "it was typing over stuff again" and dad wasn't home.
In season 2 of Brooklyn Nine Nine, Peralta broke into USPIS office to print a list of suspects .. it took a long while to do with a dot matrix printer 😂
There is nothing like the sound of a Seikosha doing NLQ at nighttimes.
As a programmer, back when the printing was cheap I used to print a lot of source code on this traction paper. So I could work on it when I was in a train, a bus, or anywhere where I could not access my computer. Sadly it's an habit that I lost.
I kept my dot matrix printers for a long time, but the thing really killed them was the fact that parallel ports disappeared from PCs.
There are parallel port to USB adapters, I saw one on a old lab printer in my uni.
@@grandsome1 Yes I bought 3 of them but no one worked with my printer...
Nowadays, you would simply take your computer with you, in the form of a laptop. And its onboard persistent storage can hold more pages than you could ever print out.
@@fredg8328 That's sad! Mine worked fine with the LQ-100 and MacOS X.
I always liked the dot-matrix printers for the fact they sound like they're ripping something apart or having a major on-going malfunction as they work as they where intended ..
Yeah the outro sounded like it was well in the process of devouring our corner of the universe lol.
The only computer technology that sounds at home in an auto repair shop.
Just like the dialup internet sound!
And the best thing is that they can print infinite-scroll webpages like endless.horse
If you like that you'll love the old mainframe line printers.
The breaks were probably down to your printer settings not being configured for tractor feed so it treated it like regular A4 with margins.
that's the reason you can't print on toast with this machine
@@chrisakaschulbus4903 ONE STAR!! WUD GIV ZERO IF I CUD!! IM FURIUOS!!
Remember seeing a 48 needle dot matrix printer back in the early nineties, the print quality was pretty much indistinguishable from a laserjet 2 or bubblejet inkjet. Was completely flabberghasted, need to get one for my retro workshop!
Surprisingly, Amstrad (gasp) made a nice dot matrix printer with overlap technology too. The characters looked like they'd been done on a typewriter. I was very impressed at the time (although they were painfully slow).
Wow. I never knew there was a 48 needle model made. That's quite unique.
@@penfold7800 The Epson LQ-100 gave very nice results too, and surprisingly strong black print with a half-decent ribbon, not the usual medium grey. I bought one dirt cheap in the early 2000s and used it for a while.
Was print shop set up for a continuous feed dot matrix? I think those spacing gaps happen across page breaks when printing sheet fed, and you were meant to overlap each page in a way to line them up.
It wouldn't matter if the program does the windows printer stack needs to be configured for tractor feed
Printer looks to have two feed modes - tractor feed or single sheet ( while operating on single sheet will leave gap ). This would be a driver option.
@@daoutbox9884 perf-skip you need to find the dip switch
God what a hassle it was... Also making sure that the printer was aligned with the page ends when tractor feeding!
Not using the holes in the paper for alignment sensing à la punch cards was a missed opportunity. Could've used De Bruijn sequences as the mathematical basis for deducing the offset from a few holes. An ISO standard for such a "side channel" would've been useful. Give me a time machine and I'll make a fortune in 1970s patents.
My dad had a 4 colour Epson in early '90 post soviet Poland. I was like 5 as I printed my first pic. I still remember the noise... Oh man, the noise!
My father had one Panasonic printer until a decade or so, because he is an accountant and needs to print lots of documents with several copies, so the only way was though that kind of printer 😅
I had a Star LC10 9 pin colour one, used to print logos for t-shirts with it hooked up to my Amiga. The great thing about it was you could use all sorts of ribbons wirh it, thermal transfer, colour or black n white and probably a few others as well.
The noise it made in high quality mode (it overprinted the same place multiple times iirc) was incredible , my god it was loud and very slow.
With noise comes results. Silence comes frustrations.
@@forevercomputing aye, doesn't matter if it's printing a document or dropping bombs on brown people, noise always equals results and silence only failure.
@@forevercomputing For me, I could basically diagnose on the moment the printer just based on the sounds and what I was expecting 😅
"American UA-camrs cover Macjbook Airs!"
LGR: Am I a joke to you?
Or Technology Connections. Or VWestlife. Or Fran Blanche. Or Adrian's Digital Basement. 8-bit guy. Should we go on? It's not a matter of nationality. It's a matter of one's area of interests and passions. You'd have thought a seemingly grown man would know that. I've just been reminded why I've unsubscribed from this pretentious, unfunny fellow (and clicked just out of curiosity to see if the channel is any different now). Anyway, I'm glad I got to know who he is enough to appreciate the inside joke of others using his book to prop things up on their channels :-D And I'm not even American.
@@KernArc Somebody missed the joke.
@@KernArc lol. he's friends with all these guys. what are you smoking?
I think he was referring to modern tech reviewers since this is not a retro printer, but a printer that can be still purchased today.
8-bit guy
"Imagine if this was an American youtube channel" Thought this was going to highlight LGR's colour 24 pin dot matrix hot dog printing shenanigans.
This whole video is basically HOW TO DOT MATRIX BANNER WITH 21 CENTURY TECHNOLOGY.
I actually never saw tractor paper IRL until recently, thought it was long gone until saw a box of one a year or two ago used in Sheremetyevo airport.
In the 1990s, Epson sold the paper tractor separately. Now with heavy competition from (their own 😲) inkjet printers, they started to sell it bundled with the printer.
Dot matrix printer: the official printer of independent auto repair shops who use that yellow continuous feed paper and furniture stores.
We used it at work for years till maybe a year ago when we finally got a laser printer. They used it for printing invoices and stuff.
I still see paper like this and hear the whirring of a dot matrix whenever I'm sitting close to a gate in a US airport
Old technology never really quite goes away. It always lives on somewhere for some niche use
You need to open the printer ribbon cartridge. Inside, you’ll find that there’s no bottle of ink to replenish the ribbon. Instead, you’ll find that there’s a ridiculously long ribbon that’s connected at the ends forming a continuous loop. It’s just packed in there like a never ending queue with endless twist and turns. The ribbon will keep feeding until the ink fades away to nothing.
Re-inking ribbon cartridges was a thing for a while. Typically, the cloth would last a lot longer than the ink. The ink had to be a special kind which was mixed with oil to lubricate the pins of the printer. Some people would just use a quick spray of something like WD-40 into the cartridge to get more of the ink out, but that would reduce the print quality since there was less ink and more oil.
Only a portion of the ribbon is impacted by the print head but the entire ribbon is inked. Given sufficient time, ink from the unused portion will soak back into the used section. The accordion pleating of the ribbon inside the ribbon cartridge also helps transfer ink back into by having the ribbon rubbing against other portions of the ribbon.
Unfortunately, the impact of the print head against the ribbon breaks down the fibers, eventually leading to worn out ribbon incapable of holding enough ink to produce a usable image.
i refill with typewriter ink.
Nooo! I thought Ribbon would move automaticalky when ink runs out
@@jlatala4655 The ribbon moves constantly but since it's an endless loop you'll get back to a previously used section after a while.
I'm going to be honest; I love the sound these things make. I've never seen one in person, but now I feel that I must.
Gonna be honest with you, depending on the setting they're in, they practically fade into the background until the moment they start singing.
I remember turning in a middle school report using one of these and the older green and white paper
Teacher was not happy, but she let me resubmit without penalty, just flipped the paper over to the white only side
Also back in like 99 used one to print out a massive flowchart for a Visual Basic programming class
Good times!
That was American tech UA-camrs to a tee. They edit out every millisecond of breath so it is just non-stop words.
Ever watch business blaze?
@@slightlyevolved Thankfully 8-Bit Guy and LGR know how to deliver their script, with concise pauses the content can be enjoyed more. Some UA-camrs are emulating the FedEx advert guy, where you're still digesting the last sentence when they are half way through the next. And also LGR is the pioneer of good retro content; he has inspired so many, inc. Peter.
You say that, but 8-bit guy and Adrian's Digital Basement are sort of the style of channel this is and they don't do that.
@@6581punk There are defiantly exceptions, and yes Adrian can be added to the quality list for sure; see my reply above. Linus sure knows his stuff, don't doubt it, but for me he talks too quick.
BTW can we call you SID? 😁
The paper makes me so nostalgic, my grandma used to buy huge old boxes of it and we'd draw on it all the time, and usually not tearoff the hole borders unless we wanted to make something with them. She never had a printer to go with it though.
If you know the “Computerphile” and “Numberphile” channels, some of those presenters like to use tractor-feed paper for notes as well.
I grew up with one of these and spending lots of time coloring in the pictures cause my school required color pictures.
Me too but my dad bought me a colour one after a year
In the 80s & early 90s, I sold sound-insulated boxes that covered Dot-Matrax printers in offices all over Dallas TX.
That would have been great to have back in the days!
@@gianfavero They came with special printer stands with a slot cut in the bottom to feed the boxes of continuous feed paper and clear plexiglass lid. They would cut the sound by about 1/2.
This is great! I was worried that these had gone the way of the cassette deck and only low-quality printers were still in production, but Epson still makes (expensive) 24-pin dot matrix printers. I love it when old tech lives on.
i agree. dot matrix was a really good idea and still has its purposes for living :)
They are needed in various places, for example in our airline printing SITA telexes from the mainframe... that tech has not changed much in the last 50 years....
Dot matrix printer goes brrrrrrrr... Clint from LGR: Heavy breathing intensifies
Imagine the days when you were working in an office with ten of these things going off at one. It's probably one of the reasons I'm deaf in one ear.
these and the line feed printers from IBM going at 500 lines per minute
And the Newbury Data ND640 - they were a noisy beast, especially when the end of year financial reports were being printed
@@jjjacer Yes, I had forgotten about those monsters. They even made "sound proof" enclosures for them, but they were still loud as hell. People siting there waiting for the results of an inkjet or laser printer have no idea how bad things used to be.
i started out in the early days with a Star 9-pin as my first printer but added software which allowed "poster" printing over as many A4 sheets as required AND using a reverse micro-feed trick i could swap ribbons and print full colour images/documents in a 4 pass process (patience is a virtue) worked surprisingly well. Long live the AMIGA!!
It kind of amazes me how, after all these years, they've NEVER found a way to make these things any less noisy.
@@vlc-cosplayer LOL you might be right.
Some office ones had sound enclosures that encased the printer and reduced the noise to a muffled growl. You could buy aftermarket ones for home printers as well.
Close the top and put it inside a printer housing... Silencers that let you print all day long, while on the phone...
A good housing and you barely hear a low Hmmm Hmmmm Hmmmmm, foam rubber and other materials absorb the sound.
They did, back in the day. Citizen made some nice 24pin printers. This modern one is just cheaply made junk with poor quality parts.
Im also pretty sure its for a simple reason that the printer is still quite loud, its old tech that no manufacturer is willing to put R and D money into making better, most businesses have moved to using laser based systems, this device clearly due to its inclusion of the centronics and the serial ports is made to support legacy hardware, basically its a cheap printer, for old systems, you can sorta tell based on it being the most bare basic version, 9 pin and monochrome, Its like the tanashin casette mechanisms that you can still buy new off the self, the most basic and pretty crappy version of a dead tech for legacy use.
This printer is still made because it's used for "carbon-copy" style forms where the printer needs to be able to print identical information to multiple pages simultaneously. the ink hits the first page, the impact transfers the carbon to the below differently colored pages. The puce form goes to Roz...
I often found these in cheap used car dealerships for the above purpose. they print all the data on the form with this printer, then you sign it.
At least in Germany they're widely used by Doctors because of the carbon copies. Usually for receipts and other stuff that need multiple copies.
Still widely used in industry.
Indeed, this is the main reason they’re still used, and he failed to mention it in the video!
The other reason is their _extreme_ reliability.
These babies tend to have their own character sets or font sets built within the ROM.
Most modern word processing software cannot use those fonts properly, so basically it's printing a low Res raster image.
When they were plugged into a proper old LPT port and use their built-in character set it's JUST MAJESTIC.
Interesting. That implies, of course, kissing goodbye to WYGIWYS, I may guess?
Yep. WYSIWYG was a big deal. It necessitated moving into graphics mode on both the screen and the printer. Truly ubiquitous now, and wholly taken for granted, but in the late 80s to early 90s, well.. it was the stuff Computer Chronicles episodes were made of. :-)
There are tons of websites online claiming word still does use printer font sets and printer-only features. Anyways if it doesn't, you should still be able to install word 95 and 97 and make it work
does Notepad/WordPad work with it?
The OpenType and TrueType fonts print in graphics mode.
Many moons ago my mate bought a 24 pin dot matrix printer, an Epson I think, we got it out of the box, put it on the desk, and just sat and stared at it. It was amazing, It cost an absolute fortune, the racket it made was crazy and if the desk it was on had had wheels it would have walked across the room, what a cool piece of kit it was.
Wow...this reminds me of the Epson LX-80 I had as a kid in the late 80s. It only had a 9-pin print head. I used to use it with The Print Shop made by Broderbund. I'm pretty sure that if I still had it, it would still be working. It was slow and you had to peel off the perforated sides but nothing could beat being able to put a 1000 sheet box of paper on the floor, feed it in and then not have to worry about refilling the paper for ages.
Despite what you think about American UA-camrs, you, Techmoan, and 8-Bit Guy are a trio of my favorite technical channels.
Only one of those is American...
@@eDoc2020 Who actually? 8-Bit Guy?
@@ЯСуперСтар Yes. David (8-Bit) is Texan and Mat (Techmoan) is British.
@@eDoc2020 thx
Old Linux distributions (and other UNIX systems) used to include a "banner" command. It allowed to print large text banners on endless paper right from the command line.
Still do, man 1 banner.
"banner" is still in the arch repos
They also had the "lp0 on fire", or "printer on fire" error message.
@Deon Denis Well, let's see if IBM is willing to sell one of those from their old mainframes.
@Deon Denis yeah, I thought so. I mean, we just need some protocol compatible with the teletype, and the software side is already in place.
Although I fear that many were just scrapped. Just like those old multi-MB hard drives. Dave fromm EEVblog made a teardown of one.
I don't know why, but I just love the sound of a dot matrix printer. There's just something about that sound that the print head makes that I like.
never knew they still made Dot Matrix Printers that makes me happy
I had sort of assumed they did, for industrial environments with some fire risk (e.g. garages), but I don't think I actually checked.
OMG, that sound brings me back to Junior High School. Good Memories. I've been out of Junior High School since 1990.
Dot matrix printers. You got to love these noisy buggers....
They Are cheaper than inkjet
They still see use as receipt paper especially if the printer needs a carbon copy.
@@atomiswave2 certainly cheaper to run, but not quite cheaper to buy. Perhaps because of scale and also perhaps manufacturers are using a razor and blade model of pricing, many inkjets can be bought for a song
I'd forgotten about threading the paper on to the rollers. Our printer always seemed to have a problem with gripping the paper, unless of course it was when the paper looped back around and got caught... then it locked perfectly!
Well... That kinda depends on which american youtube channels you are following.. 😉😉
Yeah this seems more like a big channel VS small channel divide
Yeah like, from what i know druaga1, lgr, akbkuku (tech tangents), 8bit guy are americans.
@@eduardoavila646 LGR can't be American. Not enough Green Red hair, dubstep and videos about Elephant Toothpaste. Also he doesn't throw around hardware. Can't be American.
@@ReptilianLepton It's impossible he's American. Never heard him say anything about "not feeding kids exclusively on McDonald's is socialism".
@@semiconductorwave7859 Not enough guns, NASCAR, V8s and pickup trucks either
The sounds of a dot matrix printer and a telephone modem were the quintessential soundtrack of the '90s PC experience.
What American tech UA-camrs does he watch? Certainly no nostalgia tech channels like LGR or 8-bit Guy.
It's a joke bro, lol.
I refer to those as GREAT UA-camrs, rather than American. It's just because I've done as stint of watching some modern tech channels.
@@Nostalgianerd So a not obnoxious UA-camr = GREAT UA-camr and an obnoxious one = American UA-camr? Yeah that's an unsub.
@@djance6886 why does that offend you so much lmao like who cares
@@djance6886 Perhaps you'd like to speak to his manager.
Thanks for this video. I came here after hearing the old familiar sound of Epson dot matrix from a receipt printer, where they remain popular. The loud cacophony of pins smashing ink onto paper was a part of my childhood, before my parents bought me an inkjet because they wanted less noise.
It's interesting that I could miss that sound, and the warm smell of oily ink on a fresh print, but here I am.
The print shop needs to be run on an Apple II for this to be true nostalgia. It would actually work, too.
Monochrome green screen as well
...only if you had an ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer connected to it... that sucker was fast!
I'm surprised myself and all the kids I went to school with in the early 90s don't suffer from hearing loss. A computer lab with multiple dot matrix printers running at once, and many of us standing around them waiting for our projects to print out.
Today I learned: you and Stuart are sharing the same office, more or less.
One of my earliest memories is a kid's gymnastics class where above the gym wall a Print Shop banner was hung: "NO PAIN, NO GAIN! (jumping jack clipart)" To tell the truth, it was mildly intimidating.
I remember there was a specilal print function on the School BBC (can't remember the program that did it) That would print a "super high res" using a dot matrix... it did this bynot printing one line at a time but by advancing the paper by a fraction of a line and repeatedly overprinting at small offsets... took about 10 minutes a page and destroyed ribbons but for 9 pin dot matrix it was near laser printer quality. The school had one laser 'available' to students attached to a mac that you could only use with specific permission and it was 15p a page (a lot of money for a teen at the time)
Gosh, I miss that lovely sound! My first printer was an Epson LX-800 (beige, of course) and I can't help thinking that it's been the _best_ printer I've ever had. Ever.
The jump in versions from 6 to 23 cracked me up
I like the sound. It reminds me of the classified results at the end of "Grandstand" or the opening titles of "UFO". And for all you youngsters out there, that was a time when uploading an image took half an hour and sandwich spread was a delicacy.
Sandwich spread still is a delicacy
You don't even need to replace the ribbon.
Just spray wd-40 when it start fading and it good as new for anothrr 40,000 characters
Your profound contrast to the septics is precisely why we enjoy watching your videos :)
The company i work for still uses A4 dot matrix tractor feed printers quite heavily. Mainly for printing invoices in large batches. They are ancient old things connected to the network using HP Jet Direct units. Which gives you an IP addressable parallel connection on an ethernet network. The things are so old i have to Telnet into them.
parallel over IP? fancy stuff.
For large-volume printing, lasers are the way to go.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Im not so sure. We have 5 large Cannon multi function printers in our office. About 2yrs old. A full set of Toners for each is about £3,000 UKP / $3,400 USD. Not cheap !.
@@TheSaabClinicUK That will last quite a while, though. Divide it by the number of pages, and you’ll see.
Actually, telnetting to port 9100 for feeding print jobs is still a thing. It even has a name: “appsocket”.
That spacing might be for regular single page printers where you stick them together yourself. It may be a "paper type" setting.
6:10 i busted out laughing
Used and especially NOS dot matrix printers for companies are like gold. We loved them not because they were able to print e.g. fine pictures, but for their ability to print batch documents, especially bills. No wonder the cheapest one costs like over 3 times more than a "regular", entry-level inkjet one.
That printer would look great next to LGR's 'new' 486 PC :)
A good video for LGR 💻🎬📹
Clint himself did a fine video on dot-matrix and banners. He tinkered with a vintage (or should we say era-appropriate) COLOR model in it.
ua-cam.com/video/Q4qJf50YSVk/v-deo.html. LGR
486
This is why I so LOVE this channel! As a fellow Brit, it's something only we understand. Like how can Corrie still be on TV after all these years? And EastEnders too! Come back Grange Hill , Why Don't You and TISWAS is all I can say! Not forgetting of course, Fun House, Take Hart, and, of course, Trap Door! Quality TV! I had the exact same printer back in the day and upgraded to a coloUr one! Man I missed that nails on a blackboard sound! Thanks Nostalgia Nerd! I love the Britishness of this channel! I love Britain! I would never want to live anywhere else!
Just a daily reminder that EPSON didn't kill itself.
I hate the Epstein meme but got a laugh out your version, well done.
@@scarlet_phonavis6734 Prisons are harsh environments and are not run by the best people under the best standards, nor are the guards even competent. They definitely don't care for the welfare of the prisoners.
The idea that Epstein would "incriminate high profile people" is sheer speculation, and they don't treat prisoners differently based off what conspiracy theories circulate about them.
The alternative is far less likely: Somebody sabotaging the cameras, paying the guards not to check his cell, coming in undetected by any camera or security system anywhere in the complex, killing a prisoner and leaving undetected. It's completely implausible.
@@3rdalbum i mean, the cia has toppled whole governments without being cuaght.
There is one kind of dot-matrix printer that cannot be replaced: tear-line printers. (and can even be found on some laser and inkjet printers)
Why do you need tear line?
@@michaelcoll433 generally for office or industrial uses.
A medium sized distribution centre I worked at will print off a page where the lower third is the picking slip (list of items that need to be picked for an order), and the upper 2/3 is the order invoice.
Since you mentioned laser printer... That's the specific kind of printer that can replace dot matrix tear line printers I think. Though of course proper ventilation is needed.
@@FlameRat_YehLon firstly, the lasers used for laser printers act on a drum, not the paper itself.
secondly, even if it did work on the paper directly, there is a great risk of the paper catching fire before they're finished with burning the holes.
@@SkyCharger001 Laser cutters are a thing, and IIRC there exist versions that are for cutting patterns out of a sheet of paper (probably mainly for clothing industry). Whether there exist ones that has an actual printer built in though, I'm not sure.
Using pulsing laser for cutting papers actually won't burn the whole sheet, because the energy is so condensed it straight up vaporize a tiny spot.
Though of course, not catching fire doesn't mean no smoke, and you really wouldn't want to have that in an enclosed environment or the whole room is in charcoal smell.
For dot matrix that thing is fast and quiet! The one my parents used to use on the C64 back in the 80ies sounded like a freight train coming through the house and took half an hour to print a page. You also needed the special paper with the holes in it like they still use in airports these days.
I saw thst exact printer at a used computer store for $5.
Printer banners from middle school and high school. So nostalgic. Or how the first banner came out: Baniner... 😂
I still have to use these things almost daily. They're an utter pain in the arse to be honest!
Why? For what purposes are they better than laser or other? Why do ppl need exactly dot matrix ones?
You can print through carbon paper for example if you need 3 versions of same invoice. I used to print 40 sheets long triple invoices in the early 2000 for a transport company I often wonder what they use now and knowing them it's probably still the same printer
They survive pretty well in garage environments (printout of brake reports and the like) they're fine, just very slooooow (even in draft mode), the tractor feed paper jams up frequently...
I don’t know why you still need carbon copies. Can’t your printing system do multiple copies?
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 the handwritten portions (signature, etc...) also need to be duplicated
Nice! I loved banner prints back in the day. A strong memory of mine was at a "garage birthday disco" (which was quite popular in the 80's) featuring a large banner stating "Disco" along with the dancing couple clip art. Classic. Iconic... In later years, I had to support dot matrix printers for business use. Not as fun as banner making, unfortunately...
"The map requires a printer! Is your printer ready? [Y/N]" -- _LGR Plays - Last Half of Darkness Part II [ft. PushingUpRoses]_
Almost considered buying one for the kids school while watching this, then hearing the noise when it printed reminded me why I never want one of these in my home ever again.
Nostalgia nerd either keeps getting better or worse depending how you look at it
That Linus impression killed me. xD
Now you're gonna have to explain a daisy wheel to the kids.
"Because the letters look prettier than on a dot-matrix printer."
I've never seen one in person
We had a daisy wheel at home, it stood waist height and also had a full keyboard so could be used as a stand alone typewriter/terminal as well as a printer. We used with an RML280Z that had dual 8" floppies.
I remember Banner software for long banner paper long time. My computer PC 486 for windows 3.11 and 95.
Dwight Schrute: "IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY"
6:08 this got me rolling on the floor 😂😂😂
Ohhhh low views and 3 likes this is very interesting. Cool looking video. Great job.
YO YO YO NERD! I live in the US, and I much prefer channels like yours any day. Keep up the great work!
I demand a full version of the printing the Welcome banner.
My first dot-matrix printer was a Commodore MPS801 connected to my C64.
@@bichela It was indeed a noisy beast.
Daisy wheel? Huh I allways thought Stuart was a Selectric man...
I don't know what I should do with this new information
They sound like machine guns. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat ...
Make a banner using a daisy wheel printer, of course!
Continuous feed form paper, that scream from the 9 pins printing my 1985-86 homework from my Commodore 64. I miss my Citizen 120D! Thanks for the sound.
Dot Matrix : for when you use Multipart Stationary... yup. Lasers/Inkjets can't do them.. they just print on the top layer only....
Why not just print multiple copies?
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 exactly. You can print multiple copies faster than any dot matrix printer.
@@michaelcoll433 actually no. The multipart comes preprinted. The dot matrix just fills in the blanks. I've seen multipart consisting of 5 copies at once... A laser or ink jet has to print the *whole* sheet each time... (Company logo, text etc)
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 - a 2-part form allows the customer's signature and any corrections to appear on both pages.
I have one in my clinic. We use it to print out the patients' prescriptions on triple carbonated paper issued by the Order of Physicians. I've had it for 3 years and it has not failed us once. I'm still using the original ribbon it came with the printer.
"Look at banner, Michael!"
“IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY.”
I had to search before posting this!
Who would want a dot matrix printer that isn't noisy at all? That classic office sound is a huge part of the appeal!
I've always loved the sound of a dot matrix printer, ink jet and laser just don't have the impact of these
Quite literally true! Haha
I will never miss working in a small office every day with a half dozen of these printing constantly.
Never do that American UA-camr impersonation again. It was awful.
Awfully accurate.
Even Simon Cowell said that was "absolutely horrible!"
Well he did forget to mention "10 things you missed when dot matrix printing" and "you won't believe what it prints next" but otherwise spot on. :-)
My local pharmacy still uses dial-up and one of these.... it’s a blast to the past when you walk in and hear the “dun nuh nuh” once and awhile.
In all honesty, that beard is starting to look like it got torn off of a dot matrix...😁
I remember these well as a small kid. We had a color one with the original printshop. Man! That was so fun making banners with these printers and the feed paper.
Oh my god, that sound takes me back to RM Nimbus.
I remember making wall sized "photos" using some tractor fed dot matrix printer and an on-line rasterizer. If you were far enough away, they looked ok. Up close, not so much.
This was fun to watch, thanks for sharing!
I have an urge to spend money on something I do not need
That's my question. Who are these being made for?
@@KOTYAR1 people who don’t need high quality printing and more need economy
Almost entirely for repairing old systems that can’t really use anything else (hence the par/ser ports) or the need to make duplicates.
Both are really really niche - since old systems that can’t drive a laser printer are old enough to be falling over now anyway, and multiple copies can be made by just printing more than one. But if you’ve got carbon copy forms that you’re printing over, well... this is your guy.
@@nickwallette6201 7€ for 4 million characters is also ridiculously cheap compared even to laser printers - it's the equivalent of ~1200 full pages of text. Toner costs _at least_ twice as much, and printers capable of using larger, cheaper cartridges usually cost much more than this dot matrix printer.
I can see one of these still justifying its existence somewhere they need to print out legible text and don't need anything fancy.
From what I can tell most of these are used to make old school paper invoices for various small businesses like garages and engineering firms. They get a stack (or feed) of forms printed from a print shop onto triple or quadruple copy paper with a nice logo and boxes for all the text and then a program will print the addresses, items, quantities and prices all in the right boxes using a monochrome dot matrix printer in black or dark blue ink. The one on the top goes to the customer (because it looks the nicest) and the rest of the copies for internal record keeping probably in a giant filing cabinet.
Impersonation of a British youtube channel: "pip pip god I'm so much better than the yanks pip pip I can't get a ps5 whyyyy"
Laser cartridges seem expensive, until you consider how many pages they can print and then they are actually a really good value. We bought a Dell laser printer four years ago and it's still using the original cartridges it came with. I do miss dot matrix printers though, that sound brings me joy.
I don't think that's a US specific youtuber thing. There are lots of similar chill retro tech channels from the US like LGR, Technology Connections, and 8-bit guy. One of the biggest youtubers with that obnoxious style is Pewdiepie from Sweden.
I'm American and can confirm, your impression was spot on... great video!
Idk, that American youtuber impersonation sounds about right to me.
I'm waiting for you to fix the spacing issue before I buy one myself. Please do a follow-up video on this.
Nostalgia Nerd: "This is what American UA-cam channels are doing: 'Yo yo yo-!'"
*LGR has entered the chat*
VWestlife, Technology connections, The 8-Bit Guy, Mac84, OddityArchive, and Databits have all entered the chat as well.
Edit: oops I forgot Adrian's Digital Basement.