Printer project: can anyone write Windows drivers?

[Beyondhelp]

Could you not emulate a really old basic dot matrix printer, and use that driver? Some or the star printers were very basic to interface with. Only trouble is all will be parallel interfaces.

 

[Ravi]

Could you not emulate a really old basic dot matrix printer, and use that driver? Some or the star printers were very basic to interface with. Only trouble is all will be parallel interfaces.

I was going to ask whether dot matrix printers still existed. But I thought that I might be the only living person that remembered them!
Assuming that it is still cheap to make the old typewriter ribbons, there is a real gap in the market for someone to supply them. They are noisy, but would be perfectly adequate for printing text and basic graphics.

 

[2nd_apprentice]

Epson still sell ESC/P compatible dot matrix printers but they're rather expensive. Mainly for form printing and industrial applications. Nigel would have a hard time printing chartlets or weather fax though. The charm of a proper thermal printer would be that they have hardly any moving parts at all and their size of course.

 

[nigelmercier]

According to Microsoft site, all Windows 7 versions have Fax & Scan ...

Yes, and you quoted me saying so

Epson still sell ESC/P compatible dot matrix printers but they're rather expensive...

My first dot matrix printer cost me over £400, around 1978. Until then I had been using a teletype machine with a small circuit board to interface it to a Spectrum, along with a printer driver that I wrote to serialise the data. I recall that the driver was under 256 bytes long and lived in the printer buffer, which was normally used to drive a Sinclair thermal printer!

Funny how things go full-circle.

 

[prv]

Thought of this myself but it's quite tricky. In the end I bought a Pentax PocketJet II for £30, no brainer!

Exactly - this is precisely what I was suggesting in post 8.

With that model name to search on (thanks) here's one for £23 delivered: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/2812...3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=95&ff19=0#viTabs_0

Pete

 

[nigelmercier]

I've looked into the PocketJet II, it doesn't have Windows 7 drivers, or even Vista ones. There are more recent ones for about £100, but an old fax machine is about £5, or even free. I'll have a play with mine and report any progress.