It's nice to see a Commodore PRINTER taking front & centre -- either you're nostalgic about the sound of a dot matrix head, or you never want to hear it again! I was laughing during your re-inking effort with the sponges, because it reminded me of a seemingly ridiculous hack that we used in a zero-budget computer lab running dot matrix printers in the 1990s (and when I say zero budget, I mean none for cartridges OR ink). We would grab the nearest black ball-point pen, remove the ink cartridge and cut the ball point off, effectively making a straw filled with ink. You would put the top end between your lips and slowly blow all the ink out onto the ribbon while turning the knob to run it through its loop. No mess, and surprisingly effective. I can't attest to pen ink being good for the print head in the long run -- but I don't recall our printers ever breaking down, either.
Ah the joys of dot matrix. I remember printer hoods used to reduce (somewhat) that noise. They still use dot matrix where they need carbon copies (on multi-part paper). I guess legally it is a carbon copy rather than alleged 2nd print of page... That's probably why you still have DMs and their supplies. Thanks for taking me back down memory lane :-)
The graphics print needs a few passes per line because the printer's buffer is so small. This effect is most noticeable when you print out a program listing (OPEN1,4:CMD1:LIST) because the computer basically locks up until the print is nearly complete - only then do you get READY and your cursor back. Upgrading to an MPS-1200 blew my mind. Faster, quieter, and prints in both directions! Plus the buffer was larger, so I got my cursor back sooner. But watching this video makes me want to lug the MPS-801 out of the closet and give it a go for awhile.
There's a lever inside on the left side (in front of the paper) that you can adjust to move the head and ribbon away from the paper. This may help reduce the smearing.
@@Grim-oc9fw It does. It stops the smearing of the ribbon against the paper. I just dusted off my printer in test mode and confirmed. All the way in and the ribbon rubs a line on the paper. A few notches back and it stops. Doesn't seem to do anything to the printed characters - it's just ribbon clearance.
If I remember right, I had an Epson connected to my good old Atari ST during my studies. I nicknamed it "Nadelfräse", in english "needle milling machine", because of the infernal noises it made. And nowadays we still use a dot matrix printer to print out the messages from our process control system in a waste water treatment facility.
Tolle Vorstellung dieses uralten Druckers. Dieser Drucker wurde damals für viele verschiedene Home Computer hergestellt. Deshalb auch die einfach nur eingeschobene Elektronikplatine, die auch das Interface beinhaltet. Eine sehr effektive Bauweise. Sehr interessant fand ich schon damals, dass der Druckkopf mit einem einfachen Federwerk zurückgezogen wurde. Damit das ordentlich funktioniert, muss die Führungsstange des Schlittens leicht gefettet/geölt sein. Die Farbbandkassetten lassen sich übrigens öffnen und im innern ist ein Rolle, die mit Tinte getränkt werden kann und die nach und nach die Tinte an das Farbband abgibt. Damit lässt sich auch das Problem des Schmierens auf dem Papier vermeiden. Einige Druckermodelle hatten zusätzlich auch eine Verstellvorrichtung, womit der Abstand des Druckkopfs zum Papier geringfügig verändert werden konnte. Bei Deinem Gerät sind das auf der rechten Steite diese im Bogen angeorneten Löcher im Chassis. Allerdings ist die Verstellung bei Deinem Gerät nicht bestückt.
Having grown up with printers much like that MPS-801, it fills me with awe to this day each time I see a laser or ink jet printer chuck out entire pages in just seconds.
I had an 802, actually I still do, including a few NOS ribbons. Just haven't used it in a while. I bought a job lot of C64 stuff in about 1995, after our neighbours dropped off a C64 with a 1541 on our door mat. "You like old stuff, don't you?". The 802 had the major advantage of a push tractor feed instead of a pull like the 801, which means you waste a page of paper for every print job. The MPS-1000 even had a push/pull feeder IIRC. Pull was good for intricate or stiff materials like labels.
My last dot matrix printer had 24 pins, did a 2 pass print putting dots between dots and it was really fast. The print quality was very good as well. I got it free from someone who upgraded to an early inkjet printer. I love the sound of them. Nice to see you restoring this one. Unfortunately old printers are a part of the retro hobby that no one really cares about. They sell for next to nothing and normally end up being thrown away.
One very nice thing about the old printers having their own ROM (and I guess a sort of processor), is that they don't require any drivers to work. The computer just outputs data to the printer, and it takes care of all the printing itself.
Great stuff... Acquired one of these printers in a bundle of Commodore stuff over a year ago. Came to me in original box with original receipt and warranty card. After watching your video I feel tempted to give it a bit of a clean and see if I can get it to print something...
A flood of memories came back to me. I also had same model printer with my Vic-20 back in the 80's in the UK. We are in Australia now last 30 years and I know my brother still has my old Vic in his retro computer collection. I will have to check with him to see if he also has the printer as I would love to see it again. I can't recall what happenned to it.
This was my first printer too! The trick on these ink cartridges was to open them up and spray the ribbon with WD-40. It would thin the ink a bit and it would redistribute across the cloth and help fill in the depleted center section. I would do it a number of times and it still worked OK. If it got too light then I'd use inkpad ink to replenish it. The limiting factor was the ribbon itself would get worn-out from the pins hitting it and start wearing holes in it. Cheap aftermarket ribbons usually wore out much faster compared to the OEM ones. Still have my 801, just no continuous form paper to use.
My C64 printer was a star nx-10 if I recall. I did run into one of these once though, the printer actually only had 1 tall “pin” - there’s a bar behind the ink+paper with sharp bumps on it that rotates crazy fast, and determines where that “unihammer” makes a dot vertically, making it very noisy too!
Jan,lo sempre detto,non ti batte nessuno.hai sistemato una bellissima stampante storica Commodore,e un gioiello.Jan,sei sempre il RE.alla prossima,ciao.
I remember finally getting a dot matrix printer for my Commodore 64 and how cool it was. Was such a big game changer on writing reports. I can't remember what printer though. I was in France in 85 for my Dad's work.
Ah! the MPS-801 my first own printer. I was just so awestruck by how futuristic it looked, sweet memories of tractor feed paper and faded ink ribbons.. :)
My Seikosha SL96 is still going strong. I was lucky enough to find a new old stock colour ribbon a few years back after the old one gave up after 24 years. I wish the ink on modern printer's would last that long 🖨️😉
I already used stamp ink in the '80s, in order to save my little money (being a teenager, I always ran out of money those days LOL)! I use to directly add ink on the ribbon, without to use any sponge, leaving the ribbon pretty wet. You can also use ink with a different color, like blue and maybe red. Today I'm using blue ink, since it was what I had at home.
I just measured it with an app on my smartphone: up to 95 dB without the cover, significantly better with the cover, but still a pain in the ass... aaah, the pleasant sound of ink jet and laser printers LOL
I remember we once had a field trip in school to some government place (in the 80ies). And they had a dot matrix printer, which could print a whole line in one go (the print head was as wide as the page). Boy, that thing was loud - but fast. At least back then it was considered blazing fast.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. You could get a rom upgrade back in the day to print the tails, might look on archive.org for that or see if Adrian Black has a printer he could make a rom image for you. Also, there is a silver lever on the inside left of the printer to adjust the print head gap to the paper, when putting in a new ribbon, you often had to back off the gap to allow for the fuzzy goodness of a fresh ribbon. Great vid, thanks again!
Also my first printer, bought to use with my Commodore 64. I recall that third party companies were advertising replacement ROMs that would give true descenders (I don't recall if they also did bi-directional printing). My second printer was an Epson LX-86, used with my Amiga, a fair step up in quality.
Just picked up one of those for $5 at an estate sale. Our preferred printer back then for the C64 was the Epson FX-80 with a Cardco parallel printer adapter. I still have the adapter but alas the printer long ago met the trash bin when inkjets came out.
This puts me waaay back. We had a MPS-801 in school back in the days. My first printer experience. Later I owned a MPS-1200. The sound of those printers is unmatched. * swrrreeeet*swrrreeeet*swrrreeeet*swwwt*swwwt*swwwt*krrrllt * ( * print*print*print*feed*feed*feed*jam * 😆 )
Wow! That sound takes me back! I've got a Commodore MPS1250 printer with a combined Centronics and Commodore interface plug in module. I could use it with my Commodore 64 AND my Amiga 500! :-)
Basic and loud model GP500(A) by Seikosha, my first printer for the Commodore plus/4. The Original had a different connector that needed an interface (Wiesemann) for use with Commodore.
Dot matrix printers are definitely still in use. I've seen brand new Okidata Microline printers...and they're not cheap! I can imagine a dot matrix printer being useful for a lot of quick prints where cheaper cost is more important, like auto repair shops, doctor's offices, etc. Inkjet cartridges are expensive and add up very quickly. Dot matrix printers might be an option in that case if super high quality prints aren't needed.
I enjoyed this one Jan. I have an MPS 801 new in the box out in my storage shed. I have to get it out of storage and start playing with it!... Thanks for the great video!.... :)
I remember having my Commodore DM printer. This is probably the exact model but I am not sure of that. Cool! I am talking about 1985, when I was online with it too, using Q-Link and 300 baud modem. Q-Link turned into AOL in the future from there.
I had the Tandy version. Yes it is a dot matrix. The “head” has 2 hammers (you can tell by the ribbon cable to the carriage) Behind the paper is a spiked bar, the bar is spun, and the hammer is fired when the spike on the bar is at the correct height to create the dot. The hammers are sloped as the carriage is mechanically linked to the spiked bar so you get a vertical line. The carriage is released at the end of the line and the spring pulls it back to the home position. Very simple and very slow and noisy.
I love all your videos! I also still have my MPS801 which was also my 1St printer. I also have my 2nd and 3rd printers being the MPS801 and the Commodore PDS1101 which was NOT CHEAP! In October of 1986 for $29.95 I bought a ROM which made the tails of the q, y & j go below the line on my MPS801.
I used to 'replenish' dry ribbons with a good spraying of WD40; works on colour ones too. If you couldn't get it apart, clamping it and using a drill to power the ribbon advance did the trick.
oh man.. i do NOT miss the sound of dot matrix printers! MY school used to have BBC Micro's on trolleys, and they all had Epson FX-80 printers for printing. You could hear one printing at the other end of the school!
One of our first networked setups at my school had a daisy wheel printer. That was really loud as well as it was more like a commercial grade "high speed" type.
I did this! I opened up the cartridge because I was actually attempting to replace the ribbon, but the ribbons I had were too long for this cartridge. I put a few drops of ink in and it was very dark and smeared for quite some time. Still pretty bad...got better after many many pages. Moral of the story...it only needs 1-2 drops
That was the sequel to my Vic 1525.... the 1525 / Gorilla Banana / Tandy DMP100 were all the same Seikosha, iirc. The MPS-801 was probably my favorite printer.
Back in the day, we used a dribble of WD-40 on a dry ribbon. It would bleed and smear for a couple of test pages and have a slight color change. But we got a lot more use out of a ribbon. Epson, Roland, and Tandy ribbons.
I had a VIC 1525. It worked great, especially with Print Shop/Print Master/News Room. I also used Magic Desk, one of the first programs I got with the C64. You should try printing out a banner!
Danke für das Video! Ich restauriere ebenfalls gerade einen MPS801 - auch mein erster Drucker aus der Kindheit. ;-) Zur vollständigen Reinigung der alten Gehäuse nutze ich immer den Glasflächenreiniger von Dr. Becher. Das Zeug wird auch gerne in Kneipen zur Reinigung der Oberflächen und Vitrinen genutzt, da es wirklich alles wegratzt. Kein muffeliger Geruch mehr hinterher und wirklich perfekt sauber. Ich habe mal einen alten Commodore Monitor (1084-P) repariert; neuer Zeilentrafo, etc. Da habe ich ebenfalls das Gerät vollständig auseinandergenommen und alle Gehäuseteile gründlich mit dem Glasflächenreiniger bearbeitet. Übrigens auch die Platinen; allerdings nicht die Unterseiten. Hinterher erstrahlte alles in neuem Glanz.
In the day I gave up with the Commodore printers as it seemed faster to write things out by hand than printing! I ended up getting a parallel port interface for my C128 and attaching a NEC P2200 24pin printer; obviously you didn't get the blocky graphics characters but it printed like a bat outta hell.
Ahh, memories. My first printer was an Olivetti which had just one ink jet. It went back and forth eight or nine times per line of text and the registration differed a little between the directions, so any vertical line became a concertina. Unfortunately the tiny paper steps also didn't always match, so some lines (and pages) got squashed vertically. It used a fairly high voltage pulse to move the ink to the paper, which looked like a line of tiny sparks as the head moved.
Ive worked for one of the biggest retail companies in the world and they still use dot matrix printers for printing reports (LG31 Digital printer, also some parts use LA75 printers)
The ink replenishment made me laugh. I went through many shenanigans trying to refill that ink when i was 10, so that I could continue printing huge banners for no apparent reason.
you could mod or softmod the rollers (should they be removable or spring-loaded) to have a rubber wheel instead, which could grip the paper and advance it which means you wouldnt need perforated paper, but thats kind of a matter of if you want to be able to use it with normal paper instead... and i have a feeling that the cartridges could be remanufactured in some way, even DIY...
Why not adjusting the print head distance? Or did i miss the part of the video where you explained that lever? It guess it would have helped a lot putting it lower on the dry ribbon and lifting it from the paper after the refill to reduce smearing.
This was my first printer that I used on my C116. My parents bought it for me at Allkauf (which are now Real). I used it for many years until the Amiga came along. I then replaced it with a 9-pin printer with a Centronics interface because I didn't know how to connect the round DIN plug to the Amiga. I don't think that was even possible.
The retrobrighting slow down may be do to depleting the peroxide. Washing the part and applying fresh peroxide would probably let you get the rest of the yellow out.
Ich hatte den an meinem VC20. Es war mein erstes BASIC Projekt die 8Bit Grafik auf 7 Nadeln des Druckers umzuverteilen (das Programm ist schon längst verschollen). Der Höllenlärm beim Invers Druck ( schwarzer Hintergrund) war bis in den Keller zu hören.
Such a nostalgic sound when that thing gets going! Sounds like the printer is clearing its throat 🤣 I remember my dad bringing back reams of holed paper like that from work to use on our Epson dot matrix. Your stuff looks quite yellow, is it vintage 80s paper?!
The metal tab on the side with the notches going in a half circle are to adjust the gap between the head and the paper. If your ink is a bit much you can depress the metal tab and move it to a further away notch to avoid the streaking :-)
This must be a custom version of the Seikosha GP250X mechanism. That was my first printer. It's not actually even a "proper" dot matrix printer. The tell is the ribbon cable driving the print head. It only carries three signal lines. The head doesn't have a set of needles but just a vertical hammer. And the platen is not a rubber platen but has ribs across the print direction and it rotates fast. The print head hits each vertical line up to 7 times to produce up to 7 dots as it hits against the rotating ribs. Extremely noisy and extremely slow. But the fact that it actually works is amazing.
Oh man, I still remember when we got our C64 printer... I went out and bought The Print Shop just to be able to print cool things. Today people wouldn't understand the struggle of waiting 5 min to print something ..lol
I bought one of these from a schoolfriend. I had it connected to an Amiga 500 via some kind of home-made parallel to serial interface that was advertised in the back pages of a computer magazine. I thought it looked familiar in the picture but as soon as I heard the noise...! Microphones cannot possibly capture the shear volume and mechanical pain of these things. I rejuvenated my ribbon with an aerosol carbon spay. I wouldn't recommend it because 30 years later I still can't hear much and my hands are black. 😃
Great video! Thanks for showing is the process. I looked up the cpu. It had I/Os. It needs ram and rom. I guess, like the disc drives, it is a computer in itself 🙂
I had a Seikosha SP-1000-VC. Not bottom-end, like this 801; but not high end like the best Epsons; but a damn fine reliable workhorse which never failed
I seem to recall on my Okidata Microline 182 there was a modification for the ribbon cartridges where you would drill a hole to add ink into the ribbon compartment (might have been an actual kit). Yeah, I was cheap enough that I was refilling ink cartriges for a Microline 182. And I was surprised to see they still make a variant of that printer (186plus) that actually has USB. So that presumably means I could still get ribbons if I still had the printer (probably died 30 years ago).
I think you got great outro now! Typing dot matrix printer as a background of closing titles. Just switch off that screaming printer sound and it will be even more great.
Jan, I notice the command you use to access the print , isn't exactly correct the first number is a device number , according to the manual 4 is for the printer and 1 is datasette . From what i remember back in high school (1984/5) the command used was (open4,4:cmd4:List)
My first printer was a Sinclair Thermal Printer. Would be really cool if you get one of those working in 2021. They were flakey enough from new !!!!! Finding the paper might be an issue, some tills use thermal paper but not sure if even compatible.
I'm reasonably sure that the Sinclair printer wasn't so much thermal as electric arc, basically it burnt the aluminium coating off by spark conduction rather than using heat. Good luck finding a roll of that stuff.
Nice job. The MPS-801 has gradually become my favourite-looking of all the Commodore printers. Something about the chunky design.
Yes, I like the design, too! It says 80s in so many ways but it's still rather elegant. :)
It's nice to see a Commodore PRINTER taking front & centre -- either you're nostalgic about the sound of a dot matrix head, or you never want to hear it again! I was laughing during your re-inking effort with the sponges, because it reminded me of a seemingly ridiculous hack that we used in a zero-budget computer lab running dot matrix printers in the 1990s (and when I say zero budget, I mean none for cartridges OR ink). We would grab the nearest black ball-point pen, remove the ink cartridge and cut the ball point off, effectively making a straw filled with ink. You would put the top end between your lips and slowly blow all the ink out onto the ribbon while turning the knob to run it through its loop. No mess, and surprisingly effective. I can't attest to pen ink being good for the print head in the long run -- but I don't recall our printers ever breaking down, either.
Ah the joys of dot matrix. I remember printer hoods used to reduce (somewhat) that noise. They still use dot matrix where they need carbon copies (on multi-part paper). I guess legally it is a carbon copy rather than alleged 2nd print of page... That's probably why you still have DMs and their supplies. Thanks for taking me back down memory lane :-)
The graphics print needs a few passes per line because the printer's buffer is so small. This effect is most noticeable when you print out a program listing (OPEN1,4:CMD1:LIST) because the computer basically locks up until the print is nearly complete - only then do you get READY and your cursor back.
Upgrading to an MPS-1200 blew my mind. Faster, quieter, and prints in both directions! Plus the buffer was larger, so I got my cursor back sooner. But watching this video makes me want to lug the MPS-801 out of the closet and give it a go for awhile.
There's a lever inside on the left side (in front of the paper) that you can adjust to move the head and ribbon away from the paper. This may help reduce the smearing.
Yep. I believe it should also help to prevent the 40 years old head to break.
Jan, you can also adjust the printhead. There is a lever at the left site. 😊
Doesn’t work, try again. I have 10 of these in a chain I use to this day to print a news letter for me town in dunmarkish.
@@Grim-oc9fw It does. It stops the smearing of the ribbon against the paper. I just dusted off my printer in test mode and confirmed. All the way in and the ribbon rubs a line on the paper. A few notches back and it stops. Doesn't seem to do anything to the printed characters - it's just ribbon clearance.
If I remember right, I had an Epson connected to my good old Atari ST during my studies. I nicknamed it "Nadelfräse", in english "needle milling machine", because of the infernal noises it made. And nowadays we still use a dot matrix printer to print out the messages from our process control system in a waste water treatment facility.
Haha. Nadelfräse is a great word to describe it. My old Espon LX-800 did sound a bit like a Kreissäge.
Tolle Vorstellung dieses uralten Druckers.
Dieser Drucker wurde damals für viele verschiedene Home Computer hergestellt. Deshalb auch die einfach nur eingeschobene Elektronikplatine, die auch das Interface beinhaltet. Eine sehr effektive Bauweise.
Sehr interessant fand ich schon damals, dass der Druckkopf mit einem einfachen Federwerk zurückgezogen wurde. Damit das ordentlich funktioniert, muss die Führungsstange des Schlittens leicht gefettet/geölt sein.
Die Farbbandkassetten lassen sich übrigens öffnen und im innern ist ein Rolle, die mit Tinte getränkt werden kann und die nach und nach die Tinte an das Farbband abgibt. Damit lässt sich auch das Problem des Schmierens auf dem Papier vermeiden.
Einige Druckermodelle hatten zusätzlich auch eine Verstellvorrichtung, womit der Abstand des Druckkopfs zum Papier geringfügig verändert werden konnte. Bei Deinem Gerät sind das auf der rechten Steite diese im Bogen angeorneten Löcher im Chassis. Allerdings ist die Verstellung bei Deinem Gerät nicht bestückt.
Thank you Jan Beta!!! I'm looking forward to a video of the capacitor replacement in the future.
Cap replacement is probably unnecessary.
Replacement on tantal, haha.
@@westelaudio943 it is necessary in photo flash if you need to make polarity wrong. Never saw, but read that it make flash really flash!
Having grown up with printers much like that MPS-801, it fills me with awe to this day each time I see a laser or ink jet printer chuck out entire pages in just seconds.
I had the MPS-803 for my C-64 - the 803 was a smaller footprint - great video as always Jan :)
I have an MPS-803 on the way.
I had an 802, actually I still do, including a few NOS ribbons. Just haven't used it in a while. I bought a job lot of C64 stuff in about 1995, after our neighbours dropped off a C64 with a 1541 on our door mat. "You like old stuff, don't you?". The 802 had the major advantage of a push tractor feed instead of a pull like the 801, which means you waste a page of paper for every print job. The MPS-1000 even had a push/pull feeder IIRC. Pull was good for intricate or stiff materials like labels.
My last dot matrix printer had 24 pins, did a 2 pass print putting dots between dots and it was really fast. The print quality was very good as well. I got it free from someone who upgraded to an early inkjet printer. I love the sound of them.
Nice to see you restoring this one. Unfortunately old printers are a part of the retro hobby that no one really cares about. They sell for next to nothing and normally end up being thrown away.
One very nice thing about the old printers having their own ROM (and I guess a sort of processor), is that they don't require any drivers to work. The computer just outputs data to the printer, and it takes care of all the printing itself.
Great stuff...
Acquired one of these printers in a bundle of Commodore stuff over a year ago. Came to me in original box with original receipt and warranty card.
After watching your video I feel tempted to give it a bit of a clean and see if I can get it to print something...
Best of the commodore Printers from that generation. I got stuck with the MPs802 which was a Piece of xxxx. The 803 was pretty good as well.
A flood of memories came back to me. I also had same model printer with my Vic-20 back in the 80's in the UK. We are in Australia now last 30 years and I know my brother still has my old Vic in his retro computer collection. I will have to check with him to see if he also has the printer as I would love to see it again. I can't recall what happenned to it.
I can only recommend getting the printer set up. Such nostalgia! :D
This was my first printer too! The trick on these ink cartridges was to open them up and spray the ribbon with WD-40. It would thin the ink a bit and it would redistribute across the cloth and help fill in the depleted center section. I would do it a number of times and it still worked OK. If it got too light then I'd use inkpad ink to replenish it. The limiting factor was the ribbon itself would get worn-out from the pins hitting it and start wearing holes in it. Cheap aftermarket ribbons usually wore out much faster compared to the OEM ones. Still have my 801, just no continuous form paper to use.
My C64 printer was a star nx-10 if I recall. I did run into one of these once though, the printer actually only had 1 tall “pin” - there’s a bar behind the ink+paper with sharp bumps on it that rotates crazy fast, and determines where that “unihammer” makes a dot vertically, making it very noisy too!
Jan,lo sempre detto,non ti batte nessuno.hai sistemato una bellissima stampante storica Commodore,e un gioiello.Jan,sei sempre il RE.alla prossima,ciao.
I remember finally getting a dot matrix printer for my Commodore 64 and how cool it was. Was such a big game changer on writing reports. I can't remember what printer though. I was in France in 85 for my Dad's work.
Ah! the MPS-801 my first own printer. I was just so awestruck by how futuristic it looked, sweet memories of tractor feed paper and faded ink ribbons.. :)
It is a beautiful (and noisy and slow) beast. I dearly loved it back in the day and getting one again is massively nostalgic. :)
My Seikosha SL96 is still going strong. I was lucky enough to find a new old stock colour ribbon a few years back after the old one gave up after 24 years. I wish the ink on modern printer's would last that long 🖨️😉
Just bought one this week. Ordered new old stock ink and paper 240x280mm. Hopefully, everything goes well 🙏
I already used stamp ink in the '80s, in order to save my little money (being a teenager, I always ran out of money those days LOL)!
I use to directly add ink on the ribbon, without to use any sponge, leaving the ribbon pretty wet. You can also use ink with a different color, like blue and maybe red. Today I'm using blue ink, since it was what I had at home.
"Near Letter Qualitiy" means the printer will produce something that nearly resembles letters.
On Epson, NLQ would print each line twice, in the same direction and with miniscule changes. It was much slower, but absolutely worth the time.
Ahh, the "pleasant" sound of a dot matrix printer. Memories.
I just measured it with an app on my smartphone: up to 95 dB without the cover, significantly better with the cover, but still a pain in the ass... aaah, the pleasant sound of ink jet and laser printers LOL
I remember we once had a field trip in school to some government place (in the 80ies). And they had a dot matrix printer, which could print a whole line in one go (the print head was as wide as the page). Boy, that thing was loud - but fast. At least back then it was considered blazing fast.
@Moseby Hill-Relevant Awesome. Didn't know that.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
You could get a rom upgrade back in the day to print the tails, might look on archive.org for that or see if Adrian Black has a printer he could make a rom image for you.
Also, there is a silver lever on the inside left of the printer to adjust the print head gap to the paper, when putting in a new ribbon, you often had to back off the gap to allow for the fuzzy goodness of a fresh ribbon.
Great vid, thanks again!
Also my first printer, bought to use with my Commodore 64. I recall that third party companies were advertising replacement ROMs that would give true descenders (I don't recall if they also did bi-directional printing). My second printer was an Epson LX-86, used with my Amiga, a fair step up in quality.
The re-ink attempt was well worth it. I am surprised the cloth ribbon hadn't turned to dust. Well done!
For old ink have you tried the spray a bit of wd40 and move the reel then a bit more and then it should reagitate the ink
Just picked up one of those for $5 at an estate sale.
Our preferred printer back then for the C64 was the Epson FX-80 with a Cardco parallel printer adapter.
I still have the adapter but alas the printer long ago met the trash bin when inkjets came out.
I used to have one of these and I hated it because my friends with PC's had far better printers. Now I'm obsessed with finding one. Such is life!
Just bought a boxed one and it powers up. Thanks for the video as it will help me refurbish/keep it going
Jan, you need to retro-bright your paper ;)
German Umweltschutzpapier!
Also universal usable as toilet paper!
Compliments on your profile picture
@@MehYam2112 And yours. ;)
This puts me waaay back. We had a MPS-801 in school back in the days.
My first printer experience. Later I owned a MPS-1200.
The sound of those printers is unmatched.
* swrrreeeet*swrrreeeet*swrrreeeet*swwwt*swwwt*swwwt*krrrllt *
( * print*print*print*feed*feed*feed*jam * 😆 )
Wow! That sound takes me back! I've got a Commodore MPS1250 printer with a combined Centronics and Commodore interface plug in module. I could use it with my Commodore 64 AND my Amiga 500! :-)
I still have my Mac Inker device. It will run the ribbon around a capstan with an ink reservoir. Worked really well.
Basic and loud model GP500(A) by Seikosha, my first printer for the Commodore plus/4. The Original had a different connector that needed an interface (Wiesemann) for use with Commodore.
Dot matrix printers are definitely still in use. I've seen brand new Okidata Microline printers...and they're not cheap! I can imagine a dot matrix printer being useful for a lot of quick prints where cheaper cost is more important, like auto repair shops, doctor's offices, etc. Inkjet cartridges are expensive and add up very quickly. Dot matrix printers might be an option in that case if super high quality prints aren't needed.
Thanks Jan, so many memories !!!!!!
I enjoyed this one Jan. I have an MPS 801 new in the box out in my storage shed. I have to get it out of storage and start playing with it!... Thanks for the great video!.... :)
Your love for those devices makes the devices love you ;)
I hope so! :D
I from Poland and I always looked for European equivalent of Windex. And i finally found it :)
I remember having my Commodore DM printer. This is probably the exact model but I am not sure of that. Cool! I am talking about 1985, when I was online with it too, using Q-Link and 300 baud modem. Q-Link turned into AOL in the future from there.
I love the video maybe you can do more on this like tuning the printer with a rubber band or changing the eprom to fix the font problem.
I had the Tandy version.
Yes it is a dot matrix.
The “head” has 2 hammers (you can tell by the ribbon cable to the carriage)
Behind the paper is a spiked bar, the bar is spun, and the hammer is fired when the spike on the bar is at the correct height to create the dot.
The hammers are sloped as the carriage is mechanically linked to the spiked bar so you get a vertical line.
The carriage is released at the end of the line and the spring pulls it back to the home position.
Very simple and very slow and noisy.
Yes, I read up about the mechanism in the service manual. Pretty peculiar. But it works well enough. :)
I love all your videos! I also still have my MPS801 which was also my 1St printer. I also have my 2nd and 3rd printers being the MPS801 and the Commodore PDS1101 which was NOT CHEAP! In October of 1986 for $29.95 I bought a ROM which made the tails of the q, y & j go below the line on my MPS801.
Great video. The sound of that printer brought back memories !
I used to 'replenish' dry ribbons with a good spraying of WD40; works on colour ones too. If you couldn't get it apart, clamping it and using a drill to power the ribbon advance did the trick.
oh man.. i do NOT miss the sound of dot matrix printers! MY school used to have BBC Micro's on trolleys, and they all had Epson FX-80 printers for printing. You could hear one printing at the other end of the school!
Haha, yes, I remember printing at school, too. The computer room was intentionally located far from the regular classrooms in my school. :)
One of our first networked setups at my school had a daisy wheel printer. That was really loud as well as it was more like a commercial grade "high speed" type.
I did this! I opened up the cartridge because I was actually attempting to replace the ribbon, but the ribbons I had were too long for this cartridge. I put a few drops of ink in and it was very dark and smeared for quite some time. Still pretty bad...got better after many many pages. Moral of the story...it only needs 1-2 drops
Nice printer - amazing improvement from the retrobrighting!
That was the sequel to my Vic 1525.... the 1525 / Gorilla Banana / Tandy DMP100 were all the same Seikosha, iirc. The MPS-801 was probably my favorite printer.
My first printer was the Seikosha GP100VC, which is the same as the VC1525. Later i replaced it with a Star NL-10, which was able to print NLQ
Also sold as the Tandy Line Printer VII.
Back in the day, we used a dribble of WD-40 on a dry ribbon. It would bleed and smear for a couple of test pages and have a slight color change. But we got a lot more use out of a ribbon. Epson, Roland, and Tandy ribbons.
I had a VIC 1525. It worked great, especially with Print Shop/Print Master/News Room. I also used Magic Desk, one of the first programs I got with the C64. You should try printing out a banner!
Danke für das Video! Ich restauriere ebenfalls gerade einen MPS801 - auch mein erster Drucker aus der Kindheit. ;-) Zur vollständigen Reinigung der alten Gehäuse nutze ich immer den Glasflächenreiniger von Dr. Becher. Das Zeug wird auch gerne in Kneipen zur Reinigung der Oberflächen und Vitrinen genutzt, da es wirklich alles wegratzt. Kein muffeliger Geruch mehr hinterher und wirklich perfekt sauber. Ich habe mal einen alten Commodore Monitor (1084-P) repariert; neuer Zeilentrafo, etc. Da habe ich ebenfalls das Gerät vollständig auseinandergenommen und alle Gehäuseteile gründlich mit dem Glasflächenreiniger bearbeitet. Übrigens auch die Platinen; allerdings nicht die Unterseiten. Hinterher erstrahlte alles in neuem Glanz.
In the day I gave up with the Commodore printers as it seemed faster to write things out by hand than printing!
I ended up getting a parallel port interface for my C128 and attaching a NEC P2200 24pin printer; obviously you didn't get the blocky graphics characters but it printed like a bat outta hell.
Nice! I love old printers, and have about 10 total, back from PET printers to this 801. Thanks for the video
Ahh, memories. My first printer was an Olivetti which had just one ink jet. It went back and forth eight or nine times per line of text and the registration differed a little between the directions, so any vertical line became a concertina. Unfortunately the tiny paper steps also didn't always match, so some lines (and pages) got squashed vertically. It used a fairly high voltage pulse to move the ink to the paper, which looked like a line of tiny sparks as the head moved.
The effect after the re-inkt is normal, just print a few pages and it wil return to normal.
I have an Okimate 10 still in the box. Was actually my first printer ever.
Wow... I so wanted one of those when I was a kid...!
That sound really takes me back in time! Sadly I gave away my original printer about 20 years ago thinking I would never have a use for it. :(
Actually, you could use it with diskette drives to reproduce metallicka and other garbage "music"!
Ive worked for one of the biggest retail companies in the world and they still use dot matrix printers for printing reports (LG31 Digital printer, also some parts use LA75 printers)
would have killed for one of this back in the '80s
I had this from the OEM - Seikosha. The one-hammer printer as opposed to 7,8,9,24 pins.
I had a Star LC10 for my Atari ST. It was also loud but not as high pitched as this one.
Jan, dein T-Shirt finde ich sensationell!
The ink replenishment made me laugh. I went through many shenanigans trying to refill that ink when i was 10, so that I could continue printing huge banners for no apparent reason.
you could mod or softmod the rollers (should they be removable or spring-loaded) to have a rubber wheel instead, which could grip the paper and advance it which means you wouldnt need perforated paper, but thats kind of a matter of if you want to be able to use it with normal paper instead... and i have a feeling that the cartridges could be remanufactured in some way, even DIY...
Why not adjusting the print head distance? Or did i miss the part of the video where you explained that lever? It guess it would have helped a lot putting it lower on the dry ribbon and lifting it from the paper after the refill to reduce smearing.
This was my first printer that I used on my C116. My parents bought it for me at Allkauf (which are now Real). I used it for many years until the Amiga came along. I then replaced it with a 9-pin printer with a Centronics interface because I didn't know how to connect the round DIN plug to the Amiga. I don't think that was even possible.
I had a colour one of these. Man did it make the paper mushy. Mostley used it with an action replay cartidge to print loading screens.
buen trabajo! es una hermosa impresora!. gracias por el video!
The retrobrighting slow down may be do to depleting the peroxide. Washing the part and applying fresh peroxide would probably let you get the rest of the yellow out.
Ich hatte den an meinem VC20. Es war mein erstes BASIC Projekt die 8Bit Grafik auf 7 Nadeln des Druckers umzuverteilen (das Programm ist schon längst verschollen). Der Höllenlärm beim Invers Druck ( schwarzer Hintergrund) war bis in den Keller zu hören.
Such a nostalgic sound when that thing gets going! Sounds like the printer is clearing its throat 🤣
I remember my dad bringing back reams of holed paper like that from work to use on our Epson dot matrix. Your stuff looks quite yellow, is it vintage 80s paper?!
9:00 USE THE SCHWARZ black LONESTAR!
I love how your fingers just got more and more smeared with ink over the course of the episode.
The metal tab on the side with the notches going in a half circle are to adjust the gap between the head and the paper. If your ink is a bit much you can depress the metal tab and move it to a further away notch to avoid the streaking :-)
I use an okidata USB dot matrix printer. It's great for printing text occasionally
Wow, can you even get paper with sprocket holes?
Yeah many industrial companies still use them for forms and factory atmospheres since they’re dirt resistant
This must be a custom version of the Seikosha GP250X mechanism. That was my first printer. It's not actually even a "proper" dot matrix printer. The tell is the ribbon cable driving the print head. It only carries three signal lines. The head doesn't have a set of needles but just a vertical hammer. And the platen is not a rubber platen but has ribs across the print direction and it rotates fast. The print head hits each vertical line up to 7 times to produce up to 7 dots as it hits against the rotating ribs. Extremely noisy and extremely slow. But the fact that it actually works is amazing.
Oh man, I still remember when we got our C64 printer... I went out and bought The Print Shop just to be able to print cool things. Today people wouldn't understand the struggle of waiting 5 min to print something ..lol
I bought one of these from a schoolfriend. I had it connected to an Amiga 500 via some kind of home-made parallel to serial interface that was advertised in the back pages of a computer magazine.
I thought it looked familiar in the picture but as soon as I heard the noise...!
Microphones cannot possibly capture the shear volume and mechanical pain of these things.
I rejuvenated my ribbon with an aerosol carbon spay. I wouldn't recommend it because 30 years later I still can't hear much and my hands are black. 😃
... ach wie schön, mein erster Drucker. NewsRoom habe ich damit ausgedruckt. Whow!
Could you post the part number for the ribbon or a amazon link? I can't find it
Old type writter ribbon looks to be the same size.dont they still sell type written ribbon.
Es la misma SEIKOSHA GP-500, vendida también como ATARI 1029 y AMSTRAD DMP1
Yes, all the same printer basically, they just added the interfaces and the connectors for the different systems and slightly changed the case. :)
Nice. I have an MPS-803 on the way. Anyone knows where to get compatible ribbons in the EU?
Great video! Thanks for showing is the process. I looked up the cpu. It had I/Os. It needs ram and rom. I guess, like the disc drives, it is a computer in itself 🙂
Yes, I think it works very similar to the disk drives in that respect. The serial bus is stupid in itself. :D
I had a Seikosha SP-1000-VC. Not bottom-end, like this 801; but not high end like the best Epsons; but a damn fine reliable workhorse which never failed
I seem to recall on my Okidata Microline 182 there was a modification for the ribbon cartridges where you would drill a hole to add ink into the ribbon compartment (might have been an actual kit). Yeah, I was cheap enough that I was refilling ink cartriges for a Microline 182. And I was surprised to see they still make a variant of that printer (186plus) that actually has USB. So that presumably means I could still get ribbons if I still had the printer (probably died 30 years ago).
I think you got great outro now!
Typing dot matrix printer as a background of closing titles. Just switch off that screaming printer sound and it will be even more great.
Haha, nice idea.
Jan, I notice the command you use to access the print , isn't exactly correct the first number is a device number , according to the manual 4 is for the printer and 1 is datasette . From what i remember back in high school (1984/5) the command used was (open4,4:cmd4:List)
I had a Mannesmann Tally printer, I think it was MPS-801 compatible!
Now if I could just find an MPs-801 ribbon in the USA. Does anyone know of an equivalent that is still being sold ?
Do you have a link to the ribbon you bought?
My first printer was a Sinclair Thermal Printer. Would be really cool if you get one of those working in 2021. They were flakey enough from new !!!!! Finding the paper might be an issue, some tills use thermal paper but not sure if even compatible.
I'm reasonably sure that the Sinclair printer wasn't so much thermal as electric arc, basically it burnt the aluminium coating off by spark conduction rather than using heat. Good luck finding a roll of that stuff.
Just learned the english word for >>unterlängen