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I recently picked up an old dot matrix printer for $1 at the Electronics Flea Market, and the manual for it has fucking control flowcharts and timing diagrams f

I recently picked up an old dot matrix printer for $1 at the Electronics Flea Market, and the manual for it has fucking control flowcharts and timing diagrams for the signalling. It's so fucking depressing to read it in comparison to anything modern. It's so nice and it feels like it was made for me by people who actually cared about me as a human experiencing their product. It's like a warm fucking hug. I've written a driver for it and have it hooked up to my router with a little web interface and my partner and I have been using it to print out todo lists and cute little notes. I even wrote some dithering tools to get it printing images, gameboy printer style.

gruez 3y ago
>the manual for it has fucking control flowcharts and timing diagrams for the signalling. It's so fucking depressing to read it in comparison to anything modern. It's so nice and it feels like it was made for me by people who actually cared about me as a human experiencing their product. I don't know about you but the typical user just wants their printer to work, not spend hours figuring out "control flowcharts and timing diagrams". Even for a technical users I doubt you'll find many that want to geek out on how their printers and writing their own drivers. Also, despite how shitty it is to have to install an app and connect to the internet for a printer to work, if I have a report due tomorrow or a government form that needs to be filled in ASAP, I'd rather contend with the app than "control flowcharts and timing diagrams".
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  Sure I get that, but like, I didn't need to write a driver for it to print text, that worked out of the box on windows, and this printer is 30 years old. Having the one thing doesn't preclude the other. There's a zero percent chance that modern printers aren't going to be e-waste in a couple years. That's the problem, we could make good printers that can render postscript in 2024 and 2054 too, but greed prevents that.
- eviks 3y ago
  Except in reality the alternative to the app isn't timing diagrams, but a printer working as is without any apps The fact that you ignored - having such info means it's more likely you'll be able to get help cheaper and faster (helpful in ASAP situations) - doesn't even need to be considered for the first point to work
linker3000 3y ago
I have an MPS-801 dot matrix printer for my Commodore 64. The biggest challenge is buying listing paper at a sensible price. /Also have a Panasonic KX-P1124, but it weighs a ton and I've no room to keep it out so it lives in a cupboard for now.
npteljes 3y ago
There are good products and bad products in every era. Sure, there are trends as well, which change over the years, but the matrix printer times also had a lot of shitty matrix printers, as well as other products that had things we have outright banned since then.

gruez 3y ago

>the manual for it has fucking control flowcharts and timing diagrams for the signalling. It's so fucking depressing to read it in comparison to anything modern. It's so nice and it feels like it was made for me by people who actually cared about me as a human experiencing their product. I don't know about you but the typical user just wants their printer to work, not spend hours figuring out "control flowcharts and timing diagrams". Even for a technical users I doubt you'll find many that want to geek out on how their printers and writing their own drivers. Also, despite how shitty it is to have to install an app and connect to the internet for a printer to work, if I have a report due tomorrow or a government form that needs to be filled in ASAP, I'd rather contend with the app than "control flowcharts and timing diagrams".

thot_experiment 3y ago
Sure I get that, but like, I didn't need to write a driver for it to print text, that worked out of the box on windows, and this printer is 30 years old. Having the one thing doesn't preclude the other. There's a zero percent chance that modern printers aren't going to be e-waste in a couple years. That's the problem, we could make good printers that can render postscript in 2024 and 2054 too, but greed prevents that.
eviks 3y ago
Except in reality the alternative to the app isn't timing diagrams, but a printer working as is without any apps The fact that you ignored - having such info means it's more likely you'll be able to get help cheaper and faster (helpful in ASAP situations) - doesn't even need to be considered for the first point to work

linker3000 3y ago

I have an MPS-801 dot matrix printer for my Commodore 64. The biggest challenge is buying listing paper at a sensible price. /Also have a Panasonic KX-P1124, but it weighs a ton and I've no room to keep it out so it lives in a cupboard for now.

npteljes 3y ago

There are good products and bad products in every era. Sure, there are trends as well, which change over the years, but the matrix printer times also had a lot of shitty matrix printers, as well as other products that had things we have outright banned since then.