MX-80 – Ahead of its time: A small, lightweight computer printer(global.epson.com)
global.epson.com
MX-80 – Ahead of its time: A small, lightweight computer printer
https://global.epson.com/company/corporate_history/milestone_products/11_mx80.html
79 comments
That is an amazing photo. I love how it looks as if you're about to get cracking on your personal finances in Lotus 1-2-3.
Those IBM keyboard clicks and printing sound from the video brings back good memories.
All that's missing to complete the picture...
https://youtu.be/vvr9AMWEU-c?t=2
Amazing photo. It screams 80s to me, in a good sense. Thanks for sharing.
I love how clean and white all your hardware is. It all looks brand new.
Most of it is painted, that's why its not yellowing.
Unfortunately the paintwork is a little worse for wear in a few places. I did dig up the paint codes that IBM used, but what would be difficult to factor in is the slight discolouring over time.
Unfortunately the paintwork is a little worse for wear in a few places. I did dig up the paint codes that IBM used, but what would be difficult to factor in is the slight discolouring over time.
Why didn’t you try retrobrite?
For the most part, it doesn't need it.
There are two plastic plugs on the top of the CRT which cover up some screws, those did need retrobriting, but the rest of the casing is painted plastic and metal, the ABS underneath is neither visible nor exposed to UV light.
Also the paint is actually scuffed and lightly worn off in a few places, retrobrite won't do anything about that. It either needs new paint, or I need to accept it as patina.
There are two plastic plugs on the top of the CRT which cover up some screws, those did need retrobriting, but the rest of the casing is painted plastic and metal, the ABS underneath is neither visible nor exposed to UV light.
Also the paint is actually scuffed and lightly worn off in a few places, retrobrite won't do anything about that. It either needs new paint, or I need to accept it as patina.
Love the AT and the original BASIC and Operations guide!
With the official glass stand! Awesome.
Lovely desk
My father had one of these back in the day for the BBC Micro.
I remember struggling with painfully slow screen dump routines (for printing an image of the screen onto paper) before someone had the insight that by printing the images sideways you could read a byte of horizontal scanline data from memory and throw it directly at the printer, which treated it as a vertical column of dots; this meant you didn't need the painfully expensive step of rotating each 8x8 character cell.
Simple in hindsight, but it took ages to realise, and made screen dumps so much simpler and faster.
I remember struggling with painfully slow screen dump routines (for printing an image of the screen onto paper) before someone had the insight that by printing the images sideways you could read a byte of horizontal scanline data from memory and throw it directly at the printer, which treated it as a vertical column of dots; this meant you didn't need the painfully expensive step of rotating each 8x8 character cell.
Simple in hindsight, but it took ages to realise, and made screen dumps so much simpler and faster.
Classic combination - BBC Micro and MX-80.
Seems you were hacking yours differently to what I was doing. I acquired some army headed letter (UK), or rather 'stole'. With it I forged a letter with my MX-80 to trick a friend's parent to pop into the army recruitment centre.
This friend's parent had skived off National Service many aeons ago and I pranked him into going back to account for himself. The letter 'had to be legit' because it wasn't hand typed. So easily fooled. The things you do as a small child that you would never do as an adult.
Seems you were hacking yours differently to what I was doing. I acquired some army headed letter (UK), or rather 'stole'. With it I forged a letter with my MX-80 to trick a friend's parent to pop into the army recruitment centre.
This friend's parent had skived off National Service many aeons ago and I pranked him into going back to account for himself. The letter 'had to be legit' because it wasn't hand typed. So easily fooled. The things you do as a small child that you would never do as an adult.
You'd go to bloody prison for 20 years now for things we did in 80ies/early 90ies
I still have one here. Manually inserting control codes in Wordwise Plus! So much more satisfying than any modern word processor.
Still have mine in the loft somewhere, that and the ribbon cable to attach it to my TRS-80. Being able to print out program listings and annotate them revolutionised debugging for me.
The "O" character and "0" number looked very similar, so we used to use a hack to print "0", followed by a backspace escape code, and then a slash. That produced a slashed zero.
The "O" character and "0" number looked very similar, so we used to use a hack to print "0", followed by a backspace escape code, and then a slash. That produced a slashed zero.
> so we used to use a hack to print "0", followed by a backspace escape code, and then a slash. That produced a slashed zero.
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing, because as somebody who grow up with windows 3.1 being the earliest OS, these stories are great.
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing, because as somebody who grow up with windows 3.1 being the earliest OS, these stories are great.
This sort of thing is actually exactly what backspace was originally for - it predates computers, and was used on typewriters to e.g. make accented characters, or underline text (ASCII has underscore as a symbol for that exact purpose). You could also make things bold by doing backspace and then re-printing the same character, one or more times.
Right, and that usage was later carried on to Unix man pages. Hence this tiny but handy script I wrote (and have used for years), to strip those formatting characters:
m, a Unix shell utility to save cleaned-up man pages as text:
https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/03/m-unix-shell-utility-to-...
m, a Unix shell utility to save cleaned-up man pages as text:
https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/03/m-unix-shell-utility-to-...
That cable was apparently not universal for a while. I needed to make a cable for the Apple II parallel port to an MX-80. I forget why now, but it needed DB25 on one end and maybe a Molex header on the other.
I first had an Okidata. (Someone else's selection. I later picked up a used MX-80 -- or FX-80; I forget at the moment and don't feel like going to the basement cupboard to check.)
It, too, could backspace. Mushing together characters got me umlauted vowels and Eszett.
It, too, could backspace. Mushing together characters got me umlauted vowels and Eszett.
I never knew about this trick. Very cool, thanks for sharing!
It was popular even in the USSR in mid-80s. MX-80 were brought in the Soviet Union as a part of Yamaha MSX-2 based computer classes for Soviet children. I remember my joy when I was able to print black and white New Year’s postcard with nice fonts and graphics on that printer in 1985 :-)
You just reminded me how happy we were to pick and see fonts on these in school ~computer days.
Like to also draw attention to LX80, the dot matrix printer that followed this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlccmP9TpFo
and
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6040/Epson-LX-80/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlccmP9TpFo
and
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6040/Epson-LX-80/
Oh yeah. Legendary printer. Lasted for absolute years and years.
Also significant were the control codes. Many other printers offered Epson control code emulation, such as the Amstrad DMP* printers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESC/P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESC/P
I think the ESC/P was the newer ones after the LQ series.
I spent many an hour on our FX-80 (the successor to the MX-80), mostly doing label printing code for my dad's pharmacy. With all the escape codes documented it was great. The FX had the trick of being able to do reverse feed (From memory Esc [ 2j I think - heck that was some time ago?)
LQ series used extended version called ESC/P2 (most of the extensions having to do with higher resolution of 24-pin printers).
In working on an Android app for thermal receipt printers, I just recently learned how pervasive these control codes still are! It's great that Epson has kept up on very clear documentation, and even a surprisingly well made Android library.
I wasted the 1980's trying to invent ribbon re-inking method.
I don't know about re-inking, but can't you loosen up a dried ribbon by using a light machine oil?
I think not. The paper sucks the oil and it spreads. Ribbon ink has very special dry but sticky qualities.
Epson still makes dot matrix printers too.
https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Impact/c/w160
https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Impact/c/w160
Or for heavier duty work: http://printronix.com/product/line-matrix-en/p8000-open-pede...
My first job was working on those printers, they haven't changed much 36 years later.
My first job was working on those printers, they haven't changed much 36 years later.
What are they used for today? I assume they have better reliability (from their simpler technology) compared to inkjet or laser printers, which keeps them popular in certain industries.
Just a few days ago, I realized, the best thing to update somebody else's code, would be to print it out and take it to bed with me, so I can read the source without starring into that lamp (the monitor). I also could make notes with a pen, like placing the line number next to a function call (pointing to the function definition), etc.
Problem was, that the printout would have been over a hundred pages. Too expensive and feels like a waste of resources.
Then I remembered dot-matrix printers and checked out the market. They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.
My text-editor on the Amiga (in the 90's) would have a special print utility, that would allow to format the text (source code) in a way to fit as much text on the paper as possible, by choosing a smaller font, having multiple columns, etc.
Interestingly, nothing similar seems in production, these days.
So, ideally there'd be an affordable dot-matrix color printer, without a fixed line length (set it in the driver), and some pleasing monotype font for coders (including special chars like function arrows) as one of its internal charsets along with a utility I described above. My eyes would love it!
Problem was, that the printout would have been over a hundred pages. Too expensive and feels like a waste of resources.
Then I remembered dot-matrix printers and checked out the market. They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.
My text-editor on the Amiga (in the 90's) would have a special print utility, that would allow to format the text (source code) in a way to fit as much text on the paper as possible, by choosing a smaller font, having multiple columns, etc.
Interestingly, nothing similar seems in production, these days.
So, ideally there'd be an affordable dot-matrix color printer, without a fixed line length (set it in the driver), and some pleasing monotype font for coders (including special chars like function arrows) as one of its internal charsets along with a utility I described above. My eyes would love it!
try a2ps, used to use it at University to get multiple pages on 1 sheet: https://www.gnu.org/software/a2ps/
They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.
The reason for this being that they're still produced with the same level of quality they used to be, while "consumer level" printers have become more cost-optimised and less reliable. Dot matrix printers are still used in commercial/industrial applications so they haven't been subjected to the same race-to-the-bottom that consumer printers have.
The reason for this being that they're still produced with the same level of quality they used to be, while "consumer level" printers have become more cost-optimised and less reliable. Dot matrix printers are still used in commercial/industrial applications so they haven't been subjected to the same race-to-the-bottom that consumer printers have.
Yes, I understand. InkJets bring in the money via the ink and also, the market for dot-matrix must now be smaller, than it was, when that printing technique was the only affordable on the market.
If it's a hundred pages on laser, how is it going to be any fewer pages on dot matrix? It's not like dot matrix is going to magically improve spatial information density. Also toner is the most efficient use of ink, a ribbon is certainly not efficient.
Modern office inkjet printers can be quite cheap too, at ~3$ ink cost per thousand pages b/w. E.g. Canon's Pixma G series has models with integrated tanks you can refill with ink bottles (instead of cartridges).
Check out Sony DPT-RP1.
They also work with carbon paper, so they're popular for use cases where they want a stack of guaranteed-identical copies in one go (e.g. doctors offices still seem to have them quite often. print prescription, doctor signs it, copy for the records can be pulled off)
A lot of industries still rely on multipart carbon forms. Shipping is a big one.
One of the banks I used to use had them (okidata ml320 in that case) for the same reason.
Last time I saw them they were being used to print pay slips.
Pre-printed slips on continuous feed paper fed into the printers on tracks. The printer then prints the name/amount.
Same thing happens with checks. You can get them on continuous feed paper for dot matrix printers.
Lots of legacy applications for official documents I imagine.
Pre-printed slips on continuous feed paper fed into the printers on tracks. The printer then prints the name/amount.
Same thing happens with checks. You can get them on continuous feed paper for dot matrix printers.
Lots of legacy applications for official documents I imagine.
I had the same question, so i looked it up. From Wikipedia:
> They are good, reliable workhorses ideal for use in situations where low printing cost is more important than quality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing#Flatbed_do...
> They are good, reliable workhorses ideal for use in situations where low printing cost is more important than quality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing#Flatbed_do...
They're good for logging things, because they print one line (or character at a time), not one page at time. If you redirect your logfile to one, everything will be committed to paper once the line is finished, and you wont need to buffer things to disk or memory (where they are vulnerable to erasure by hackers or power failures) until you have a full page
Some places still use the 2 and 3 sheet carbonized receipts. Need an impact printer for those.
They are about an order of magnitude cheaper per page than laser printers.
I still remember them and printing (very loud) TrueType fonts documents with TextMaker from DOS.
I loved that printer. Did so much with it and was the first time I really did a bunch of stuff with ESC sequences. Bidirectional printing was cool and getting it to print graphics by driving the print head directly felt like magic. Anyone who programmed that printer will be instantly at home with Epson (and compatible) thermal printers and more.
Indeed! I remember using one to print zooms of the Mandelbrot set in grayscale (highly dithered) from an Apple ][+. For speed I coded in 6502 and called directly into the BASIC floating point routines for the math. The printer would take a day or so to print a sheet worth of image. But it was a great graphic output device, far less ephemeral than the screen. It was somewhat satisfying for it to print a new row of dots every now and then, once the computer had completed some math...
I remember those, and often prefer them over ink-jet because one could often fix any problems themselves. With ink-jets, if there's problems, it's hard to see what's actually going on. You usually have to rely on software drivers to diagnose and/or clean them, which often fail for some reason (probably version compatibility). I'm really disappointed with ink-jets. The higher-quality dot-matrix ribbons rarely broke, just got tangled. You could untangle it and get back to work. The problems and solutions were more clear-cut, hands-on, and visual. If they could make dot-matrix printers match the resolution of ink-jets, I just may get one, at least as a back-up.
There was a program called Fancy Font that let you do a primitive form of DTP on one of these. You typed up your document in the Fancy Font markup language and then sent it off to the printer using the Fancy Font runoff program (called 'pfont'), which would print out the document, using graphics mode to render the, er, fancy fonts.
Documents printed out this way on a dot matrix printer looked like ass, so when they became available Fancy Font supported the new exciting HP LaserJets.
Documents printed out this way on a dot matrix printer looked like ass, so when they became available Fancy Font supported the new exciting HP LaserJets.
We had a similar model with the name of FX-80. A photo I just found:
[1] http://i2.wp.com/www.applerescueofdenver.com/wp-content/uplo...
Not sure how it compared to the MX-80, but it was definitely a great printer for its time. I remember finally replacing it was a 24-pin (oh the luxury) dot matrix printer after years of service by the FX-80.
[1] http://i2.wp.com/www.applerescueofdenver.com/wp-content/uplo...
Not sure how it compared to the MX-80, but it was definitely a great printer for its time. I remember finally replacing it was a 24-pin (oh the luxury) dot matrix printer after years of service by the FX-80.
Used one of these back in the day. Excellent machines. Paper feed was so much more reliable and error-free compared to modern printers. And when things went wrong a reset and restart of the job was simple. Now I have to revere the psychology of the machine, and hope to god that its fragile plastic innards don't break.
I'd willingly return to needing special printer paper if it meant I didn't have issues with the feeding mechanism.
I'd willingly return to needing special printer paper if it meant I didn't have issues with the feeding mechanism.
Have you tried a Brother laser?
Add me to the list of people supporting this message. Mine is 13 years old and I've never had a problem with it.
(The UI is very simple: one button. I don't know what it does, as I've never needed to press it. If a document fails to print, that just means the thing is out of paper.)
(The UI is very simple: one button. I don't know what it does, as I've never needed to press it. If a document fails to print, that just means the thing is out of paper.)
+1 for these. I've owned an HL-2270DW for almost 10 years and it continues to work flawlessly. Before that I had a similar USB only version. I just purchased it's color capable cousin as a Christmas gift.
+2 I have two and have had fewer than 5 paper jams (all due to folded / reused paper) in something like 15 years.
I still have mine somewhere in storage. I bet it would even still work if I got a USB->Parallel port adapter.
[deleted]
Is there an emulator that handles this printer? I am working on a 3D multicore libretro frontend with Lua scripting. It would be interesting for me to have virtual printouts (images) to go along with a 3d model for something like this.
I saved up money to buy one of these in college, was amazing, fast, sounded like a well tuned race car :-) Still have some CSCI homework and projects on paper printed on this from my Atari ST.
i owned one of these back in the 90's, i remember connecting this to my compaq 286 with a lpt1 port or whatever you call it. no color, but i remember printing nude gifs i had back thrn of playboy playmates.
fyi, in china, when you eat at restaurants or buy things from stores you get these government tax receipts which are typically printed with these epsons, that's almost 30 years since i first started using these.
fyi, in china, when you eat at restaurants or buy things from stores you get these government tax receipts which are typically printed with these epsons, that's almost 30 years since i first started using these.
Throwing away the manual to my Epson printers was a difficult thing to do but marked a milestone in a nerds life in that era
You mean, you threw away the manual, so you'd have to find out everything yourself, by playing/hacking with the system?
Man, that'd be some real "Guy Hardening" you did there :-). Like, leaving your clothes at home and having a walk in the snow naked, sliding down the hill like a seal and rolling yourself back up.
Man, that'd be some real "Guy Hardening" you did there :-). Like, leaving your clothes at home and having a walk in the snow naked, sliding down the hill like a seal and rolling yourself back up.
It's all part of my S.A.S. preparation.... currently doing survival training in a no internet situation
You can find a copy here. Brings back memories.
http://www.thecomputerarchive.com/thearchive/Manuals/Epson%2...
http://www.thecomputerarchive.com/thearchive/Manuals/Epson%2...
It's neat that this manual from 1980 actually has an author prominently attributed and "Personal Note from the Author".
I had an RX-80 that, that I loved, until it died in the same lightning storm that killed my Atari 800. I replaced it with a Panasonic, don't remember the model, but it was also a very good dot matrix printer.
I had an RX-80 that, that I loved, until it died in the same lightning storm that killed my Atari 800. I replaced it with a Panasonic, don't remember the model, but it was also a very good dot matrix printer.
I recall designing fonts for the mx80 in basic, the user manual was my first programming "book".
MX-100 and green bar, for the win! (smile)
http://mos6581.com/pictures/5170-canvas/new-blinds.JPG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vzMVK5kV8