Love to see you caring about all these animals! LA50: the printer of "my dreams". My father worked for DEC in the 80s/90s as technician and printed all his reports at the evening at the home office on such a device. I often felt asleep with the sound of the needles, two doors away from the office. A noise, I will never forget and never hated. It more gave me the feeling "there is anybody taking care about you".
The animals are all starting to recover! The puppy is almost out of the cone, the big bunny Koma is starting to eat like normal again, and even the two tiny rescues are starting to put on weight. Hopefully, everyone continues on this nice upward trend! The LA50 is such a nice, tight little printer, it was a joy to get it up and going again. And the sound of that dot matrix print head is something I haven't heard in a long while as well. I'm glad I could get some feelings of nostalgia going with this little video!
The second I saw that, my fingers instantly went into muscle memory to operate the thing, remove lid and change paper,, reassemble and hit the go button. I used and serviced these a LOT in the 80s. Fun fact, it's the same mech as used by the Apple printer that matched the Lisa, made by C.Itoh as the 8510.
David poking the LF and FF buttons and nothing happens; all the old guys shouting at the telly “Take the printer offline!”. Those printers were built like the proverbial outhouse and will quite probably outlast you.
There's not much that can go wrong on those printers, so unless you print a bin of paper every day it will last forever or until the power supply capacitors dries out.
Man, i was going to reference and old 9 pin printer that used a typewriter ribbon and had a cast aluminum housing. I want to say it was an Okidata, but i am not sure. But those things will probably still be printing when the cockroaches inherit the earth. And on the original ribbon, it will just be printing faintly. Heck, i remember repairing "paper tiger" printers back in the 1980's, those things were beasts too. As long as you didn't mind replacing the occasional darlington pair transistor.
I had this setup in 1985 in business school. I remember a magazine review article saying "If you prefer all your equipment to be from one vendor you are in luck because the only driver that Lotus 123 provides for a Dec Rainbow is for a DEC LA50 printer". See, it's a FEATURE!!!. Oh and the next time you have the cover off the rainbow, notice that you can rotate the square logo panel next to the power switch for when you stand the computer on end in "tower" configuration. Some engineer must have been really proud of that. I also drilled a little hole in the filler panel for the second drive bay so that the hard disk's activity light could be seen. Real hacker stuff there.
My wife broke down in tears of laughter when you said "It works if you just reacharound and hit"... Made me blush. Fun project. First thing I ever wrote was a printer auto wrapping formatter for an 086 PRN output. Good times.
Great printer! Speaking as former DEC employee, when we built solid, we built solid! Best wishes for both yours bunnies and cats. A few years ago we tried rescuing a baby wild rabbit from a neighbor's dog, sadly without success. Meanwhile our 14 year old cat has a UTI, be she seems to be responding well to the antibiotics. Keep those bunnies and DEC gear alive and running!
Another old DECcie here. Worked at the Atlanta CSC, then Field Service. Saw a lot of LA50s, ans LQP02s on DECmates as well as Rainbows and Pros. You're right, it was solid stuff back then. Some great times!!
My first job in computer tech was doing tech support at a college that was in the beginning stages of moving away from mainframes to PCs. Nearly every office had one of those LA50s in them. What a flash-back hearing that thing kick on. Definitely workhorses those old beasts. Great for printing "Happy Birthday" banners! :D Thanks for sharing!
When I worked as a printer repair tech. I was told never to use wet lubricant on the print head bar. You'll get dust from the paper and the ribbon settle on the print head bars. This will gum up the bronze bearings on the print head sled.and cause the print head to seize.
Looks like (another) version of the C. Itoh 8510. Several PC manufacturers had their own versions (e.g. Apple with the DMP). I had the parallel version as a kid; nice reliable printer.
This is like seeing an old friend. Long ago I had picked up three of these, bought from a fellow who had got a whole palate of them at an auction in Albuquerque. They are Japanese in origin, made by C.Itoh company. Same basic unit as the C.Itoh Prowriter. In fact, many of the parts interchange. I had bought one as a parts unit for the Prowriter. Main difference was the Prowriter has a Centronics interface, the LA50 is serial. The firmware is different as well. The LA50 was so versatile, made cables that allowed it to tap into any serial data stream and print whatever was coming down the line when toggled on.
I thought it looked familiar. I had a c.itoh prowriter of my own for many years. Printed all my college papers and reports from a trs-80 and later pc clone. Somewhere I also got a t-shirt or poster with some cool artwork as well
Also. Mine had tractor feed mechanism to feed the paper. And I remember one teacher or professor complaining that the j and other characters didn’t have descenders
Can confirm. I was part of a small company which sold the C. Itoh printers to local businesses. It was a fine, reliable printer - and was re-badged with many different names over the years, each having slight modifications to suit the appropriate company's requirements.
I worked at a place that used VT220's, VT320's, DEC LA50's, and some Okidata Microline printers. The main office had a VAX server using the VMS OS. They used that system from the 80's until they sold the company in 2009.
“When in doubt, read the manual.” surely you mean, “When all else fails read the manual.”? I know you love your Centurion, but I’ve always loved the look of DEC products, in the 1990s I was working with Micro VAX IIs & Alphas, VT terminals and a DEC PC for a couple of years! Dot matrix printer, now there’s a sound I gladly haven’t heard in a while. Sadly haven’t heard the sound of the DEC keyboard for a while. Love the care you put into your animals, even farm bunnies.
My first computer was a DEC -Pro 350 which included a LA-50 printer. Your video really brought back pleasant memories. I still feel that the DEC Pro 30 was one of the best-engineered PC of its day. Their mistake was keeping the operating system proprietary. To this day my alias is DECPRO350. Take care of this historic computer.
Been years, but I think the 'COM' port on the printer was so it could be tied to a modem (which is why maybe it was set for 2400 bps). That port would have pinout for DTE ('Data Terminal Equipment') instead of DCE ('Data Communication Equipment'). Early days, DTE/DCE was widely considered the 'proper' way to wire. Later we just ended up throwing a 'null modem' between things when you needed to rewire.
That's exactly why the different genders on the plugs, they used to do that to show what was wired for DTE or DCE. DEC terminals allowed you to print the screen or log the screen output to the printer or the host system could control the terminal to direct printouts to the printer without needing a second line to the host (you had to finish the print before using the terminal again)
I can't help but think about Watership Down, hearing about your recent cat/rabbit engagement. I really appreciate your love of animals and that you share it on your channel. The ones you're caring for are lucky to have been found by such thoughtful and gentle humans.
Thank you so much for the kind words! One of these days, I'll get stuck into Watership Down and give it a proper read. The animals all seem to be improving this week. The puppy is almost out of the cone, the big bunny Koma is starting to eat like normal again, and even the two tiny rescues are starting to put on weight. Hopefully, everyone continues on this nice upward trend!
@@UsagiElectric ahh the update is appreciated! As I can see you well know, a little Tender Loving Care goes a long way in restoring the health and spirit of things that have been left broken. And given your love for bun buns, I can't recommend WD highly enough. It brings the world of wild rabbits to life in a stunning way and it's as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Thanks again for the update, and for all the fantastic content 😊✌️
I have an LA75 sheet feeder attachment. Those seem to be extremely rare. I’ve never seen a sheet feeder attachment for the LA50. I do remember some students in college feeding single sheets one at a time to print college papers off the PDP 11/70 mainframe using a program called Runoff. We would use a regular text editor like EDIT or TECO and incorporate the dot “.” commands for formatting information. On the Rainbow (much later) there were some more advanced word processing programs. Our Rainbow at a place I worked had a DEC Daisy Wheel Printer attached for letter quality output. The LA75 had several print speeds with the fastest being bare dot matrix and the slower being called near letter quality. There were some escape codes that would work on the LA50 to do the same thing.
Ah, dot matrix printers. Growing up, we had an Imagewriter II attached to our Apple ][c+. Noisy little thing, but nowhere near as ear piercingly loud as the high speed wide carriage daisy wheel we had attached to an IBM XT. The Imagewriter II was noisy, but you could still be in the room with it running. The daisy wheel, that one you'd start the job, leave the room and close the door! LOL Do hope your critters get well soon!
I’m pretty sure I have used this model. If I’m not mistaken we had a bunch them at my uni back in late ‘80es. Very reliable, very simple. I had a similarly simple printer myself which was lost in my very many moves and I now have an irrational desire for a matrix printer.
When we got a Laser (brand) 286 in 1990, we also got a Canon bubble jet printer (yes BJ-300/330?) alongside the 286 and it was awesome. That printer was relatively silent and much, much faster. I’m really happy I never had to endure a dot-matrix at home.
Man, this takes me back. I worked for DEC for 16-17 years. Maynard (PDP-10), Merrimack(Product Marketing), Pensacola (Sales), back to Merrimack (Marketing), Marlboro (Software Engineering), and the to Dallas (Sales Support). Laid off in 1994.
I was busy today with a 10th birthday party for a great grandson so I didn't get my view in until evening. I see 22,556 views. For a technical channel that is outstanding. Your printer project had no dragons to slay, but you have been fighting other dragons this week with your critters. That's a sign that your are human. Back in the 1980s I had a similar printer. That is, all the dot matrix printers were similar. Mine was a different brand and I have no clue which it might have been. Seeing that barberpole test print was a blast from the past for me. Next week I will expect two dragons slayed! Keep up the good work and take care of family and critters, too.
It's been SO long since I had a dot matrix printer, but I do remember that you do need to have the printer offline for the line / form feed buttons to respond. :)
this channel is genuinely cool, i love the fact your breathing life into all this gear that i'd love to use but probably never see. just the knowledge needed to keep these things working its mind blowing to me. can't imagine some people being able to find a manual nowadays, let alone learn the manual from cover to cover. great content
Went thru a few dot-matrix printers before I mortgaged my soul for a laser printer (4 figure sum for an Epson GQ3500) but the best one I had was the NEC P2200 24 pin printer. A printer that had a few party tricks; like both push and pull tractor feeds, and being able to sheet-feed whilst the tractor feed paper was still loaded... Still needed to buy headphones whilst using it...
DEC produced great hardware (and software). I used to work and maintain lots of LA75 and LA30N printers - the only problem they had I when the main rod that the print head was moving on was getting dirty from the paper fibers. I also worked the the LG15 matrix printer - large printers that was later on produced by Printronix. Good to see those printers still working !
Lithium grease is the standard lube for printhead rails, so you guessed right! You can recondition the roller by 'scrubbing' it with a rag & acetone (nail polish remover or laquer thinner work fine). IMPORTANT! You need to take out the roller to work on it, because acetone will ruin plastic parts! I have reconditioned rollers in situ when it's been impractical to remove them, but you have to be extremely careful.
Very nice. I really liked dot matrix printers, back in the day. Many are still in use in 2024, particularly in small businesses. Running costs are very low, they're extremely reliable, and they're close to the speed of many low end inkjet printers.
Late reaction, but I really love you taking care of and loving and worrying over all these animals. Don't let it crawl under your skin man. Everything you do with love for an animal will never be wasted energy!
The Ready Switch is because this printers were normally controlled by a spooler in a multi user envoironment. While you do some work on the printer like changing the colour tape or the paper, you make shure no job is executed, and the spooler stores the jobs until you are ready and press ready 🙂
So sorry to hear about the issue with the bunnies but so glad to hear they're on the mend. Awesome video about this great little retro printer. When you grow up with dot matrix printers, you'll never outgrow the thrill of what memories the printing sound evokes.
Back around 1980, I updated by small legal office into the new age of personal computing. Being pre-laser printer, we printed on dot-matrix printers like this one. I had a small one, name forgotten, for personal use, but the "big gun" was made by NEC. It was large, fast, and robust beyond any expectation. It also screamed when it printed. It was so loud that we put it and its computer in a separate, sound insulated room. Even then, its noise was intrusive through most of the office. I think I still have it stored in my basement, why I could not say.
The printer looks just like an Apple Dot Matrix Printer (aka the DMP; "Dot Matrix Printer" was literally the name of the printer, not just a generic description), which itself was a rebadged C.Itoh 8510. The DMP (and, I believe, the 8510) was a parallel printer. Apple later released the original ImageWriter, which had a different exterior but the innards were still the same or at least substantially similar, although the ImageWriter was a serial printer. Even later Apple produced the ImageWriter II, which had a completely different form factor and an updated mechanism. Other than perhaps a few Apple-specific control codes (e.g., the color codes for the IWII), I believe they all used compatible control codes.
Printers... My first proper job was VAX-operator. There was that enormous Mannesmann Tally MT660. It's been 24 years since those times, but I still remember the different types of forms and their alignments on MT660. The device was rather loud :D
I worked on a variety of dot matrix printers in the 80's. I'm not surprised that printer was made in Japan, the printers I worked on were mostly NEC and Qume, with one or two Centronics as well. The NEC 5500 (memory could be faulting me) had a lot of issues with bad duel op-amp chips, otherwise it was a pretty good printer. Later Okidata was the king, and we sold a lot of those. I replaced so many printheads with those printers. Many I serviced were in almost constant use, printing 3 part shipping orders forms.
A clear acrylic printer stand would be a neat period addition. It's basically a box with open front and back. The paper goes into the box, the printer sits on top.
All my blessings to your little ones! What a fun little printer that is! I love printers, they're like a weird subsection of computing history. I'm always happy to learn more about them! Thanks!
Back in the day I hated serial printers with a passion. Parallel was so much simpler. I never worked much with DEC dot matrix, mostly in the early 90's I was hooking them up to Tektronix Printers
1200 7n1 most likely means it was connected to an older mainframe. Realistically for most computers prior to about 1984 anything over 1200 baud was a pipe-dream the hardware couldn't actually handle. Likewise the 7 bit with no parity gave a slight (1/9th) speed boost. One also has to remember a lot of older devices only had six bit character spaces, thus requiring either an interchange box to turn it into 7 bit ascii (most of which could NOT handle anything past 1200 baud either) I remember replacing a LA50 at a jobsite in the late '80's with a daisy wheel because they were wasting an entire 5150PC as a middle-man just to turn DEC sixbit into ASCII (praise be the XLAT instruction?) and the older daisy wheen supported that native. Realistically in most cases the parity bit was only needed if you were in a noisy environment, or you were pushing the baud rate past either device or the wire's capabilities. The moment we hit 2400 baud and faster as commonplace that parity bit basically became a "must have" until cable and hardware caught up.. though also a lot of older serial devices couldn't even spare the computational power to calculate a parity bit. There's a reason 8n1 prior to about '83 really wasn't a thing, but afterwards ended up becoming the norm. I even had that issue at home with a Roland plotter (I got from a dumpster dive), where I had a choice of 300 baud at 7E1 or 600 baud at 8n1 trying to get it to talk to my Coco with its funky four pin DIN serial. But all this dicking around with baud rate, parity, and stop bits makes it pretty clear why for printers Centronics parallel ended up the winner. Well, unless you needed to run the cable a couple hundred feet.
I worked a lot with these printers in the early 1990s. By then I always had a box of adapters for printers and terminals with 9 and 25 pins as the cabling itself was with done with RJ-45 like cables.
Glad the critters are mostly OK. Just two pups here and sometimes it's been hard to keep up with their health issues. My friend worked at an auto parts warehouse that used LA50s to print pick lists for customer orders. They ran something like 16 hours a day printing 3 part carbon paper forms. They were monsters. He snagged one for me when one of them had a problem the tech couldn't fix in 5 minutes (they just put a new one in service.) I fixed mine in about 20 minutes; new caps in the power supply (whod'a thunk?) and used it for a couple more years. Still out in the garage somewhere.
Hope the bunnies survive. I know how difficult it can be to care for newborn animals. I manage to give milk to six dogs aged 2 days for 3/4 weeks (their mother couldn't give them milk due to medication), they had to eat every few hours, including by night. I had to stimulate their genitals so they could poop and pee. I had to keep them warm. I had to be their mother. After starting solid food (at about 1 month old), the work got more bearable for me. They could pee and poop by themselves, so I just had to clean them. They did not need to eat by night at this age. None of them died :) They are now 10 years old and are like sons to me. I'm glad I didn't give up.
That clear plastic over the dip switches takes me right back to being a 5 year old as the MX-80 printer looked like that inside! I knew those were the forbidden adjustments, but only that. My Dad had the Mx-80 connected to an Atari 800, I remember how loud that little print head was! Very loud!
i have also a dot matrix printer left, but i am happy that the laser printer is more silent and faster at work. Sometimes i use the matrix printer to print out a source code listing. It's better readable and you have just one long paper instead a bunch of single papers. The handling is easier and the printout is in the right order...
I was shouting to take the printer offline before trying the form/line feed buttons. How I love the sound of the old dot matrix printers. I had mine spitting out yards of ascii art on continuous feed, fanfold paper.
I remember when my previous dog needed surgery. He insisted on going for a walk in the snow. His cone scooped it up like a plow. The face full of snow didn't stop him though.
One of my favorite parts of every video is at the very end where you show one of your pets. It's better that you care for your animals than to make another video. We can wait.
Great video! I really enjoy you bringing the vintage equipment to life. It reminds me of my earlier days when an Apple ][e or a PET 2001 made my eyes wide with excitement. Then, when I got to EMU, the VAX 11 systems opened me up to a whole new world. Thank you so much!
Thanks for the video. I have a vaguely similar Epson MX-82 paralel printer that has the same self-test feature. The LF and FF buttons on it only work when it's *not* ready (or online in Epson's version).
Brings back memories of printing documents on the Star LC24-200 back in the 90's. Fancy with a bunch of fonts that could be selected, and the CYMK ribbon that took forever to print anything...
5:20 What I love about this shot is that it really shows the final merging (and death) of the old tech with the new tech of the day. The final reminiscent of a typewriter being engulfed with computer controlled steppers, logic, and printhead. It's such a work of art to look at in 2024. Just look at that platen and bail bar! Beautiful.
I think it's so charming that a third of the videos on your channel are simply titled 'I Love This [XYZ retro device].' Your enthusiasm is so obvious in every detail. I showed my not-tech-savvy husband the video of the NASA computer (can't remember the name) and even though he didn't understand a single thing about that computer, he loved the video just because you were so excited. Also... isn't it funny how when life gets tough, the first things we forget are the things that make us happy and/or fulfilled? We all need a Mrs Usagi in our lives to remind us of those happy/fulfilling things.
oh I do remember waiting on the old dot matrix printers, that is until the place I was working got a line printer, man that thing was fast, and LOUD, but it printed faster than the old printer could feed through pages.
That looks like a rather small printer; certainly smaller than the OkiData ML320 Turbo I have at work. Probably the FF/LF buttons won’t do anything while the ready light is on; this is so it doesn’t do something stupid while you’re printing out a lengthy report and someone bumps one of those switches… or plays an office prank! 😮
Bunnies...I was mowing the lawn with a tractor a couple years ago and happened to see some grass flapping around a bit ahead of the tractor. On stopping for a look, I uncovered a little depression with baby bunnies in it! Boy...if I had gone over that with the mower....I cut a wide swath around that spot and a week later they were gone. Dunno if they left on their own or a wild critter got them.
I'm glad the critters are doing better and I'm sorry some of the babies didn't make it. We've rescued rabbits before, among other small creatures including field mice, with mixed results. My two cats are indoor cats and do their bunny watching from the basement window. One cat has her own bench she sits on in front of the backdoor to give her a better view. The other cat, a nice cat that's a bit short on brain cells, sits below her and stares at the metal panel on the storm door! With it being winter, the cats watch the starlings that nest in our soffits. That keeps them entertained for now. The old LA50s are great workhorses. I remember those from my time at Infinet where they had one for every DEC Rainbow setup. I was happy to see this one still operating and almost good as new.
All pet cats should be indoor cats. It is safer for the cats -- no coyotes or autos to kill them inside. And it's much safer for wildlife. Cats kill just for the fun of it; even if they aren't hungry, they will go around hunting everything. It's great that a couple of the bunny kits look like they may survive the attack, but think about how much simpler and easier it would've been for them to not have been attacked by cats on the loose in the first place. And presumably the plan is now for them to be cared for by humans for the rest of their lives; it's unlikely they will be able to be reintroduced to the wild now that they've been orphaned and nursed by humans. Granted, the life of a wild bunny is fraught with danger regardless. There are still bobcats, coyotes, cougars, hawks, owls, etc. and many will get eaten. But at least then their deaths would be meaningful, providing food to some other wild animal, instead of just a plaything for someone's pet.
@@harvey66616 I agree. My cats, except for those we had when I was very young, have been indoor cats. Their longevity is 20-plus years and the wildlife is a lot safer as you said. We have bobcats, fox, coyotes, hawks, fisher cats, and other critters that have their share of wildlife and it also keeps the pets safer as well.
Oh, the sound of that printer. I haven't even watched the video, but I remember it clearly. (Also the µLine 80 and 82/92 by Oki, they had their own distinct "music".) I still have an Oki µLine 80, and I guess it still works, although it hasn't been used for decades. But the LA50, with its half-line feeds and reverse line feed iirc, etc. A wonderful device.
Yeah, that might be why the low baud rate set on the printer. I remember doing that back in the 1980's when I couldn't get the manual for some micro-mini (8 users on 64K of ram!) - just used the simplest RS232 and slowed everything down so the printer never overflowed... it really wasn't noticeably slower and they ran like that for years.
Thanks for that video! a blast from the past. I used to use one of those back in the 80's. I'd recommend a two shelf system, with the printer on the upper self and the continuos paper on the lower shelf. You can then feed the paper up the wall and into the back of the printer. Then you just need a way of catching the paper as it leaves the printer.
One of our cats had her jaw become dislocated for who knows what this past week, after losing a kitty a few years ago when he was young we were horrified. I feel your pain, I love animals more than most of the humans so yeah. Hope they keep recovering!
The number of times I have been hanging upside down behind desks fitting in cables , sometimes they were the right ones , always dusty ,and my knees are shot now
Pretty nice state indeed. 4800bps? That's low. Thing of beauty, joy for ever! Seeing a printer coming to life just like the Wheelwriter I once had on my bench... It fills you with determination. It's a nice thank you to your top tier patrons too, haha! Nice to see Bob there :)
Considering the printer head only generates text at a speed 1200baud would match, I'd say 4800baud is plenty fast enough. Memories of my old Roland Raven dot-matrix and being the only one in my classes in high school to turn in printed homework....sigh.
I have seen printers or sometimes software crash, when the Baud Rate was too high. Being it prints text at roughly 1200bps, a big print job may over do its buffer, and if the software doesn't care about waiting. Then things go wrong.
Thanks for putting out a video on a stressful week and thanks for your kindness to animals. Even "low effort" videos can be enjoyable and this one was fun for me to watch with my morning coffee. I had some experience with the LA50 printers connected to Rainbows. Most of my DEC printer experience was LA120 and LA36 and of course the LP02 line printers. I seem to recall that the LA50 was actually made by NEC for DEC. Thanks David!
Looks exactly like my C. Itoh 8510 (?) which is still connected and working with my original Apple II. The C. Itoh only has a parallel port though...thanks for the tips!
I was shouting "Press form feed" when you were trying to get it going. Weird that I remembered that as I've not had one of those printers for a very long time.
This gives you a fairly portable printer for your PDP-11/23! -Is there a tractor feed option for it?- You'll find tractor feed paper is _mo sukoshi takai,_ man. I hope the bunnies all do well going forward, Looks like they are off to a good start!
Something that occurs to me - I seem to remember that dot matrix printers often have a guide for the incoming feed of tractor-fed paper to keep it from getting caught on the back of the printer and tearing off the tractor feed strips.
Sorry to hear about your animals 😔 glad that things are going a bit better :). My first printer was a rainbow 2000 with an IEC connection to my commodore this video definitely brings back memories 😊
Mounting the printer above the computer has me thinking: You can start writing Strong Bad Emails ending each with "E-mail StrongBad," "Preeeow World" or "The end."
@Usagi -- Try some rust converter on that rust. it will stop the process and revert back some of the rust to its base metal. Lengthening the life of the product. Then apply the usual oil to protect it and add it to the yearly maintenance list.
DEC was one of my sponsors for grad school. This was a good choice as I'd go on to purchase a great deal of DEC equipment. However, sadly I can't recall the model name, a Panasonic was my favorite dot matrix printer. It'd handle the widest paper. It had some color options, as I recall. It'd even handle printing labels. I think it's upstairs in my garage. I was still able to use it with WinME. It was great at labels. I don't recall owning a DEC printer, but I"m sure I must have owned some. Then again, we had a dedicated print room at each office. They were expensive little cost sensors. We rented/leased gear, especially from XEROX, back then. It was very expensive but we needed to be able to print large numbers of documents and bind them. It was like $12k a month per print room and that was more than a decade and a half ago.
Issues with friction feed, excess ink on the platen (caused by printing off the paper or without paper), or just the rubber getting hard. What we used to use back in the 80's was acetone, to clean the platen. I'm not sure that is a good idea today, as that may damage the rubber on the platen. What you really need to do is restore the solvents to the elastomers and soften them back up. Tractor feed is the way to go, as you said. It was just more reliable on these old printers. Sheet feeders were generally a nightmare that just never worked properly. They eventually figured it out, but in the 80's, tractor feed was king.
Dec and Apple used same printer "engine" from C. Itoh. LA50 & ImageWriter with later work with other PC's C. Itoh 8510 drivers. LA75 & ImageWriter II. HP and Apple used same thing with first 2 versions LaserJet & LaserWriter. All with different cases and logic boards running them with many mechanical parts could interchange between brands.
That looks exactly like the ribbon on my Imagewriter II! Also, you never cease to show your love for your animal family. Love to you and yours. (also the thing with the ears at 0:38 is hilarious. :D)
Of *course* it uses the same ribbon, Apple's printer mechanisms of the era were all made by C. Itoh, just like this "DEC" is a rebadged unit with a different sticker, the same as the original Apple DMP (with different ROMs for the Apple character set, etc.) The ImageWriter was also made by C. Itoh, and then the Imagewriter II used a C. Itoh mechanism inside a chassis built by Apple.
Love to see you caring about all these animals!
LA50: the printer of "my dreams". My father worked for DEC in the 80s/90s as technician and printed all his reports at the evening at the home office on such a device. I often felt asleep with the sound of the needles, two doors away from the office. A noise, I will never forget and never hated. It more gave me the feeling "there is anybody taking care about you".
Yeah, it tells you how much of something is happening, as the end result of a lot of work and/or a lot of stuff happened!
The animals are all starting to recover!
The puppy is almost out of the cone, the big bunny Koma is starting to eat like normal again, and even the two tiny rescues are starting to put on weight. Hopefully, everyone continues on this nice upward trend!
The LA50 is such a nice, tight little printer, it was a joy to get it up and going again. And the sound of that dot matrix print head is something I haven't heard in a long while as well. I'm glad I could get some feelings of nostalgia going with this little video!
The second I saw that, my fingers instantly went into muscle memory to operate the thing, remove lid and change paper,, reassemble and hit the go button. I used and serviced these a LOT in the 80s. Fun fact, it's the same mech as used by the Apple printer that matched the Lisa, made by C.Itoh as the 8510.
I was hoping to find someone who knew who made it. And now that you point it out it does look very Imagewriter.
Thanks for reminding me! I hadn't thought of that in years.
Solid printer. Epson MX80 had more software compatibility, but this printer was very reliable. C8510
David poking the LF and FF buttons and nothing happens; all the old guys shouting at the telly “Take the printer offline!”. Those printers were built like the proverbial outhouse and will quite probably outlast you.
Yup, first thing I said to myself.... "Take it offline!" hehehe And yeah, no paper == fault light.
@@mikefochtman7164 Haha, exactly the same here, both statements made loudly over my coffee mug.
There's not much that can go wrong on those printers, so unless you print a bin of paper every day it will last forever or until the power supply capacitors dries out.
Man, i was going to reference and old 9 pin printer that used a typewriter ribbon and had a cast aluminum housing. I want to say it was an Okidata, but i am not sure. But those things will probably still be printing when the cockroaches inherit the earth. And on the original ribbon, it will just be printing faintly.
Heck, i remember repairing "paper tiger" printers back in the 1980's, those things were beasts too. As long as you didn't mind replacing the occasional darlington pair transistor.
How to show me you haven't used an old printer like this without TELLING me you haven't used an old printer like this. ^-^
I had this setup in 1985 in business school. I remember a magazine review article saying "If you prefer all your equipment to be from one vendor you are in luck because the only driver that Lotus 123 provides for a Dec Rainbow is for a DEC LA50 printer". See, it's a FEATURE!!!.
Oh and the next time you have the cover off the rainbow, notice that you can rotate the square logo panel next to the power switch for when you stand the computer on end in "tower" configuration. Some engineer must have been really proud of that.
I also drilled a little hole in the filler panel for the second drive bay so that the hard disk's activity light could be seen. Real hacker stuff there.
My wife broke down in tears of laughter when you said "It works if you just reacharound and hit"... Made me blush.
Fun project. First thing I ever wrote was a printer auto wrapping formatter for an 086 PRN output. Good times.
Haha, that was one of those things I didn't notice when I was filming but definitely caught while I was editing the video up.
made her day @@UsagiElectric
Great printer! Speaking as former DEC employee, when we built solid, we built solid! Best wishes for both yours bunnies and cats. A few years ago we tried rescuing a baby wild rabbit from a neighbor's dog, sadly without success. Meanwhile our 14 year old cat has a UTI, be she seems to be responding well to the antibiotics. Keep those bunnies and DEC gear alive and running!
Another old DECcie here. Worked at the Atlanta CSC, then Field Service. Saw a lot of LA50s, ans LQP02s on DECmates as well as Rainbows and Pros. You're right, it was solid stuff back then. Some great times!!
My first job in computer tech was doing tech support at a college that was in the beginning stages of moving away from mainframes to PCs. Nearly every office had one of those LA50s in them. What a flash-back hearing that thing kick on. Definitely workhorses those old beasts. Great for printing "Happy Birthday" banners! :D
Thanks for sharing!
When I worked as a printer repair tech. I was told never to use wet lubricant on the print head bar. You'll get dust from the paper and the ribbon settle on the print head bars. This will gum up the bronze bearings on the print head sled.and cause the print head to seize.
Looks like (another) version of the C. Itoh 8510. Several PC manufacturers had their own versions (e.g. Apple with the DMP). I had the parallel version as a kid; nice reliable printer.
This is an 8510 for sure.
Yes it is - I have a C.Itoh 8510 since 1982.
Yup. But as an old DECCIE, we'll take credit for it anyway 🙂
This is like seeing an old friend. Long ago I had picked up three of these, bought from a fellow who had got a whole palate of them at an auction in Albuquerque. They are Japanese in origin, made by C.Itoh company. Same basic unit as the C.Itoh Prowriter. In fact, many of the parts interchange. I had bought one as a parts unit for the Prowriter. Main difference was the Prowriter has a Centronics interface, the LA50 is serial. The firmware is different as well. The LA50 was so versatile, made cables that allowed it to tap into any serial data stream and print whatever was coming down the line when toggled on.
I thought it looked familiar. I had a c.itoh prowriter of my own for many years. Printed all my college papers and reports from a trs-80 and later pc clone. Somewhere I also got a t-shirt or poster with some cool artwork as well
Also. Mine had tractor feed mechanism to feed the paper.
And I remember one teacher or professor complaining that the j and other characters didn’t have descenders
Can confirm. I was part of a small company which sold the C. Itoh printers to local businesses. It was a fine, reliable printer - and was re-badged with many different names over the years, each having slight modifications to suit the appropriate company's requirements.
I worked at a place that used VT220's, VT320's, DEC LA50's, and some Okidata Microline printers. The main office had a VAX server using the VMS OS. They used that system from the 80's until they sold the company in 2009.
“When in doubt, read the manual.” surely you mean, “When all else fails read the manual.”?
I know you love your Centurion, but I’ve always loved the look of DEC products, in the 1990s I was working with Micro VAX IIs & Alphas, VT terminals and a DEC PC for a couple of years!
Dot matrix printer, now there’s a sound I gladly haven’t heard in a while. Sadly haven’t heard the sound of the DEC keyboard for a while.
Love the care you put into your animals, even farm bunnies.
My first computer was a DEC -Pro 350 which included a LA-50 printer. Your video really brought back pleasant memories. I still feel that the DEC Pro 30 was one of the best-engineered PC of its day. Their mistake was keeping the operating system proprietary. To this day my alias is DECPRO350. Take care of this historic computer.
Been years, but I think the 'COM' port on the printer was so it could be tied to a modem (which is why maybe it was set for 2400 bps). That port would have pinout for DTE ('Data Terminal Equipment') instead of DCE ('Data Communication Equipment'). Early days, DTE/DCE was widely considered the 'proper' way to wire. Later we just ended up throwing a 'null modem' between things when you needed to rewire.
That's exactly why the different genders on the plugs, they used to do that to show what was wired for DTE or DCE. DEC terminals allowed you to print the screen or log the screen output to the printer or the host system could control the terminal to direct printouts to the printer without needing a second line to the host (you had to finish the print before using the terminal again)
I can't help but think about Watership Down, hearing about your recent cat/rabbit engagement. I really appreciate your love of animals and that you share it on your channel. The ones you're caring for are lucky to have been found by such thoughtful and gentle humans.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
One of these days, I'll get stuck into Watership Down and give it a proper read.
The animals all seem to be improving this week. The puppy is almost out of the cone, the big bunny Koma is starting to eat like normal again, and even the two tiny rescues are starting to put on weight. Hopefully, everyone continues on this nice upward trend!
@@UsagiElectric ahh the update is appreciated! As I can see you well know, a little Tender Loving Care goes a long way in restoring the health and spirit of things that have been left broken. And given your love for bun buns, I can't recommend WD highly enough. It brings the world of wild rabbits to life in a stunning way and it's as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Thanks again for the update, and for all the fantastic content 😊✌️
I have an LA75 sheet feeder attachment. Those seem to be extremely rare. I’ve never seen a sheet feeder attachment for the LA50. I do remember some students in college feeding single sheets one at a time to print college papers off the PDP 11/70 mainframe using a program called Runoff. We would use a regular text editor like EDIT or TECO and incorporate the dot “.” commands for formatting information. On the Rainbow (much later) there were some more advanced word processing programs. Our Rainbow at a place I worked had a DEC Daisy Wheel Printer attached for letter quality output. The LA75 had several print speeds with the fastest being bare dot matrix and the slower being called near letter quality. There were some escape codes that would work on the LA50 to do the same thing.
Ah, dot matrix printers. Growing up, we had an Imagewriter II attached to our Apple ][c+. Noisy little thing, but nowhere near as ear piercingly loud as the high speed wide carriage daisy wheel we had attached to an IBM XT. The Imagewriter II was noisy, but you could still be in the room with it running. The daisy wheel, that one you'd start the job, leave the room and close the door! LOL
Do hope your critters get well soon!
I’m pretty sure I have used this model. If I’m not mistaken we had a bunch them at my uni back in late ‘80es. Very reliable, very simple. I had a similarly simple printer myself which was lost in my very many moves and I now have an irrational desire for a matrix printer.
I have an odd 132 col one in the garage , I never had space to put it anywhere , and I am not sure it was compatible with anything when I bought it.
@@highpath4776 A serial printer? Compatible with nearly everything assuming a suitable cable (which isn’t hard to make).
It's really nice to hear that sound of a printer coming back to life.
And see your name printed, haha!
@@KeritechElectronics yeah that too!
Us mammals gotta stick together. The world needs more people like you.
When we got a Laser (brand) 286 in 1990, we also got a Canon bubble jet printer (yes BJ-300/330?) alongside the 286 and it was awesome. That printer was relatively silent and much, much faster. I’m really happy I never had to endure a dot-matrix at home.
I love that you care about animals ❤
Man, this takes me back. I worked for DEC for 16-17 years. Maynard (PDP-10), Merrimack(Product Marketing), Pensacola (Sales), back to Merrimack (Marketing), Marlboro (Software Engineering), and the to Dallas (Sales Support). Laid off in 1994.
I was busy today with a 10th birthday party for a great grandson so I didn't get my view in until evening. I see 22,556 views. For a technical channel that is outstanding. Your printer project had no dragons to slay, but you have been fighting other dragons this week with your critters. That's a sign that your are human.
Back in the 1980s I had a similar printer. That is, all the dot matrix printers were similar. Mine was a different brand and I have no clue which it might have been. Seeing that barberpole test print was a blast from the past for me.
Next week I will expect two dragons slayed! Keep up the good work and take care of family and critters, too.
It's been SO long since I had a dot matrix printer, but I do remember that you do need to have the printer offline for the line / form feed buttons to respond. :)
The sound is identical to my Apple ImageWriter 1, and it looks like a rebadged C.Itoh 8510. These printers are indestructible.
I had a C.Itoh back in the day. No wonder the LA50 was tingling that nuron.
Flashbacks to boxes of fan paper and being the only kid with pie charts in his book report … good luck bunz!
this channel is genuinely cool, i love the fact your breathing life into all this gear that i'd love to use but probably never see. just the knowledge needed to keep these things working its mind blowing to me. can't imagine some people being able to find a manual nowadays, let alone learn the manual from cover to cover. great content
Went thru a few dot-matrix printers before I mortgaged my soul for a laser printer (4 figure sum for an Epson GQ3500) but the best one I had was the NEC P2200 24 pin printer. A printer that had a few party tricks; like both push and pull tractor feeds, and being able to sheet-feed whilst the tractor feed paper was still loaded... Still needed to buy headphones whilst using it...
DEC produced great hardware (and software).
I used to work and maintain lots of LA75 and LA30N printers - the only problem they had I when the main rod that the print head was moving on was getting dirty from the paper fibers.
I also worked the the LG15 matrix printer - large printers that was later on produced by Printronix.
Good to see those printers still working !
Lithium grease is the standard lube for printhead rails, so you guessed right! You can recondition the roller by 'scrubbing' it with a rag & acetone (nail polish remover or laquer thinner work fine). IMPORTANT! You need to take out the roller to work on it, because acetone will ruin plastic parts! I have reconditioned rollers in situ when it's been impractical to remove them, but you have to be extremely careful.
Very nice. I really liked dot matrix printers, back in the day. Many are still in use in 2024, particularly in small businesses. Running costs are very low, they're extremely reliable, and they're close to the speed of many low end inkjet printers.
Late reaction, but I really love you taking care of and loving and worrying over all these animals. Don't let it crawl under your skin man. Everything you do with love for an animal will never be wasted energy!
The Ready Switch is because this printers were normally controlled by a spooler in a multi user envoironment. While you do some work on the printer like changing the colour tape or the paper, you make shure no job is executed, and the spooler stores the jobs until you are ready and press ready 🙂
So sorry to hear about the issue with the bunnies but so glad to hear they're on the mend. Awesome video about this great little retro printer. When you grow up with dot matrix printers, you'll never outgrow the thrill of what memories the printing sound evokes.
Back around 1980, I updated by small legal office into the new age of personal computing. Being pre-laser printer, we printed on dot-matrix printers like this one. I had a small one, name forgotten, for personal use, but the "big gun" was made by NEC. It was large, fast, and robust beyond any expectation. It also screamed when it printed. It was so loud that we put it and its computer in a separate, sound insulated room. Even then, its noise was intrusive through most of the office. I think I still have it stored in my basement, why I could not say.
The printer looks just like an Apple Dot Matrix Printer (aka the DMP; "Dot Matrix Printer" was literally the name of the printer, not just a generic description), which itself was a rebadged C.Itoh 8510. The DMP (and, I believe, the 8510) was a parallel printer.
Apple later released the original ImageWriter, which had a different exterior but the innards were still the same or at least substantially similar, although the ImageWriter was a serial printer. Even later Apple produced the ImageWriter II, which had a completely different form factor and an updated mechanism.
Other than perhaps a few Apple-specific control codes (e.g., the color codes for the IWII), I believe they all used compatible control codes.
Printers... My first proper job was VAX-operator. There was that enormous Mannesmann Tally MT660. It's been 24 years since those times, but I still remember the different types of forms and their alignments on MT660. The device was rather loud :D
A friend of mine was an engineer on that printer, all those years ago!
I worked on a variety of dot matrix printers in the 80's. I'm not surprised that printer was made in Japan, the printers I worked on were mostly NEC and Qume, with one or two Centronics as well. The NEC 5500 (memory could be faulting me) had a lot of issues with bad duel op-amp chips, otherwise it was a pretty good printer. Later Okidata was the king, and we sold a lot of those. I replaced so many printheads with those printers. Many I serviced were in almost constant use, printing 3 part shipping orders forms.
A clear acrylic printer stand would be a neat period addition. It's basically a box with open front and back. The paper goes into the box, the printer sits on top.
All my blessings to your little ones!
What a fun little printer that is! I love printers, they're like a weird subsection of computing history.
I'm always happy to learn more about them! Thanks!
Back in the day I hated serial printers with a passion. Parallel was so much simpler. I never worked much with DEC dot matrix, mostly in the early 90's I was hooking them up to Tektronix Printers
1200 7n1 most likely means it was connected to an older mainframe. Realistically for most computers prior to about 1984 anything over 1200 baud was a pipe-dream the hardware couldn't actually handle. Likewise the 7 bit with no parity gave a slight (1/9th) speed boost. One also has to remember a lot of older devices only had six bit character spaces, thus requiring either an interchange box to turn it into 7 bit ascii (most of which could NOT handle anything past 1200 baud either)
I remember replacing a LA50 at a jobsite in the late '80's with a daisy wheel because they were wasting an entire 5150PC as a middle-man just to turn DEC sixbit into ASCII (praise be the XLAT instruction?) and the older daisy wheen supported that native.
Realistically in most cases the parity bit was only needed if you were in a noisy environment, or you were pushing the baud rate past either device or the wire's capabilities. The moment we hit 2400 baud and faster as commonplace that parity bit basically became a "must have" until cable and hardware caught up.. though also a lot of older serial devices couldn't even spare the computational power to calculate a parity bit. There's a reason 8n1 prior to about '83 really wasn't a thing, but afterwards ended up becoming the norm.
I even had that issue at home with a Roland plotter (I got from a dumpster dive), where I had a choice of 300 baud at 7E1 or 600 baud at 8n1 trying to get it to talk to my Coco with its funky four pin DIN serial.
But all this dicking around with baud rate, parity, and stop bits makes it pretty clear why for printers Centronics parallel ended up the winner. Well, unless you needed to run the cable a couple hundred feet.
Thankyou for caring for the animals.
I love to see the animal content on this channel, as well as the vintage computing. Hope the little rabbits make it, keep us updated!
I worked a lot with these printers in the early 1990s. By then I always had a box of adapters for printers and terminals with 9 and 25 pins as the cabling itself was with done with RJ-45 like cables.
Glad the critters are mostly OK. Just two pups here and sometimes it's been hard to keep up with their health issues.
My friend worked at an auto parts warehouse that used LA50s to print pick lists for customer orders. They ran something like 16 hours a day printing 3 part carbon paper forms. They were monsters. He snagged one for me when one of them had a problem the tech couldn't fix in 5 minutes (they just put a new one in service.) I fixed mine in about 20 minutes; new caps in the power supply (whod'a thunk?) and used it for a couple more years. Still out in the garage somewhere.
When doing the shelf above teh rainbow, don't forget to leave space behind (or under) for the box of fan-fold paper and somewhere for it to feed to.
Hope the bunnies survive. I know how difficult it can be to care for newborn animals.
I manage to give milk to six dogs aged 2 days for 3/4 weeks (their mother couldn't give them milk due to medication), they had to eat every few hours, including by night. I had to stimulate their genitals so they could poop and pee. I had to keep them warm. I had to be their mother.
After starting solid food (at about 1 month old), the work got more bearable for me. They could pee and poop by themselves, so I just had to clean them. They did not need to eat by night at this age.
None of them died :)
They are now 10 years old and are like sons to me. I'm glad I didn't give up.
Hearing how you care for all those animals and how Mrs. Usagi cares for you in turn is just wonderful.
When you say DEC LAxxx I’m transported back to my undergrad days at McGill in the early ‘80s. MUSIC crew represent! (Decwriter)
That clear plastic over the dip switches takes me right back to being a 5 year old as the MX-80 printer looked like that inside! I knew those were the forbidden adjustments, but only that. My Dad had the Mx-80 connected to an Atari 800, I remember how loud that little print head was! Very loud!
i have also a dot matrix printer left, but i am happy that the laser printer is more silent and faster at work. Sometimes i use the matrix printer to print out a source code listing. It's better readable and you have just one long paper instead a bunch of single papers. The handling is easier and the printout is in the right order...
I was shouting to take the printer offline before trying the form/line feed buttons. How I love the sound of the old dot matrix printers. I had mine spitting out yards of ascii art on continuous feed, fanfold paper.
I remember when my previous dog needed surgery. He insisted on going for a walk in the snow. His cone scooped it up like a plow. The face full of snow didn't stop him though.
One of my favorite parts of every video is at the very end where you show one of your pets. It's better that you care for your animals than to make another video. We can wait.
Great video!
I really enjoy you bringing the vintage equipment to life. It reminds me of my earlier days when an Apple ][e or a PET 2001 made my eyes wide with excitement. Then, when I got to EMU, the VAX 11 systems opened me up to a whole new world.
Thank you so much!
Thanks for the video.
I have a vaguely similar Epson MX-82 paralel printer that has the same self-test feature. The LF and FF buttons on it only work when it's *not* ready (or online in Epson's version).
Brings back memories of printing documents on the Star LC24-200 back in the 90's. Fancy with a bunch of fonts that could be selected, and the CYMK ribbon that took forever to print anything...
And left the paper really floppy as i recall from my citizen
@@TheErador Yes, looking rather like crepe paper towards the end!
@@nigefoxx good times
5:20 What I love about this shot is that it really shows the final merging (and death) of the old tech with the new tech of the day. The final reminiscent of a typewriter being engulfed with computer controlled steppers, logic, and printhead. It's such a work of art to look at in 2024. Just look at that platen and bail bar! Beautiful.
I love the sounds of dot matrix printers!! Music to my ears
That is the face of a man who is passionate about his dot matrix printer.
This equipment brings back memories of my first days as an engineer. Your dedication and enthusiasm are amazing.
In these printers FF and feed button works only in offline mode. If printer is online these keys are ignored. Same rule is for any dot printer.
What's cool about this is you can put it on the PDP and VAX as well.
All the best wishes for your animals.
You deserve a win and hopefully you caught a break with all the animals living with you. Keep it up, man. 🙂
Hooray for the wins! Love seeing the furbabies doing better! This videos has inspired me to dust off my old IBM printer and see if it still lives.
I think it's so charming that a third of the videos on your channel are simply titled 'I Love This [XYZ retro device].' Your enthusiasm is so obvious in every detail. I showed my not-tech-savvy husband the video of the NASA computer (can't remember the name) and even though he didn't understand a single thing about that computer, he loved the video just because you were so excited.
Also... isn't it funny how when life gets tough, the first things we forget are the things that make us happy and/or fulfilled? We all need a Mrs Usagi in our lives to remind us of those happy/fulfilling things.
that printhead noise takes me right back to elementary school, i can almost smell the hot print head.
oh I do remember waiting on the old dot matrix printers, that is until the place I was working got a line printer, man that thing was fast, and LOUD, but it printed faster than the old printer could feed through pages.
That looks like a rather small printer; certainly smaller than the OkiData ML320 Turbo I have at work. Probably the FF/LF buttons won’t do anything while the ready light is on; this is so it doesn’t do something stupid while you’re printing out a lengthy report and someone bumps one of those switches… or plays an office prank! 😮
Very cool printer, and I'm so glad to hear the bunnies are starting to get better! 🐇
Bunnies...I was mowing the lawn with a tractor a couple years ago and happened to see some grass flapping around a bit ahead of the tractor. On stopping for a look, I uncovered a little depression with baby bunnies in it! Boy...if I had gone over that with the mower....I cut a wide swath around that spot and a week later they were gone. Dunno if they left on their own or a wild critter got them.
I'm glad the critters are doing better and I'm sorry some of the babies didn't make it. We've rescued rabbits before, among other small creatures including field mice, with mixed results. My two cats are indoor cats and do their bunny watching from the basement window. One cat has her own bench she sits on in front of the backdoor to give her a better view. The other cat, a nice cat that's a bit short on brain cells, sits below her and stares at the metal panel on the storm door! With it being winter, the cats watch the starlings that nest in our soffits. That keeps them entertained for now.
The old LA50s are great workhorses. I remember those from my time at Infinet where they had one for every DEC Rainbow setup. I was happy to see this one still operating and almost good as new.
All pet cats should be indoor cats. It is safer for the cats -- no coyotes or autos to kill them inside. And it's much safer for wildlife. Cats kill just for the fun of it; even if they aren't hungry, they will go around hunting everything. It's great that a couple of the bunny kits look like they may survive the attack, but think about how much simpler and easier it would've been for them to not have been attacked by cats on the loose in the first place. And presumably the plan is now for them to be cared for by humans for the rest of their lives; it's unlikely they will be able to be reintroduced to the wild now that they've been orphaned and nursed by humans.
Granted, the life of a wild bunny is fraught with danger regardless. There are still bobcats, coyotes, cougars, hawks, owls, etc. and many will get eaten. But at least then their deaths would be meaningful, providing food to some other wild animal, instead of just a plaything for someone's pet.
@@harvey66616 I agree. My cats, except for those we had when I was very young, have been indoor cats. Their longevity is 20-plus years and the wildlife is a lot safer as you said. We have bobcats, fox, coyotes, hawks, fisher cats, and other critters that have their share of wildlife and it also keeps the pets safer as well.
Hands up if you have printed outside the paper on the self test on a LA50.
🖐
Oh, the sound of that printer. I haven't even watched the video, but I remember it clearly. (Also the µLine 80 and 82/92 by Oki, they had their own distinct "music".) I still have an Oki µLine 80, and I guess it still works, although it hasn't been used for decades. But the LA50, with its half-line feeds and reverse line feed iirc, etc. A wonderful device.
You might also want to check flow control, to see if it's hardware or xon/xoff. Try a large print job that will overflow the printers buffer.
Yeah, that might be why the low baud rate set on the printer. I remember doing that back in the 1980's when I couldn't get the manual for some micro-mini (8 users on 64K of ram!) - just used the simplest RS232 and slowed everything down so the printer never overflowed... it really wasn't noticeably slower and they ran like that for years.
Thanks for that video! a blast from the past. I used to use one of those back in the 80's. I'd recommend a two shelf system, with the printer on the upper self and the continuos paper on the lower shelf. You can then feed the paper up the wall and into the back of the printer. Then you just need a way of catching the paper as it leaves the printer.
One of our cats had her jaw become dislocated for who knows what this past week, after losing a kitty a few years ago when he was young we were horrified. I feel your pain, I love animals more than most of the humans so yeah. Hope they keep recovering!
The number of times I have been hanging upside down behind desks fitting in cables , sometimes they were the right ones , always dusty ,and my knees are shot now
Pretty nice state indeed. 4800bps? That's low. Thing of beauty, joy for ever!
Seeing a printer coming to life just like the Wheelwriter I once had on my bench... It fills you with determination. It's a nice thank you to your top tier patrons too, haha! Nice to see Bob there :)
Considering the printer head only generates text at a speed 1200baud would match, I'd say 4800baud is plenty fast enough. Memories of my old Roland Raven dot-matrix and being the only one in my classes in high school to turn in printed homework....sigh.
@@exidy-yt would the 4800 go for line feed and so on - and allow for a long cable run / data confirm check ?
@@highpath4776 I'm not certain but I don't think such things would require THAT much redundant bandwidth.
I have seen printers or sometimes software crash, when the Baud Rate was too high. Being it prints text at roughly 1200bps, a big print job may over do its buffer, and if the software doesn't care about waiting. Then things go wrong.
Thanks for putting out a video on a stressful week and thanks for your kindness to animals. Even "low effort" videos can be enjoyable and this one was fun for me to watch with my morning coffee.
I had some experience with the LA50 printers connected to Rainbows. Most of my DEC printer experience was LA120 and LA36 and of course the LP02 line printers. I seem to recall that the LA50 was actually made by NEC for DEC.
Thanks David!
Looks exactly like my C. Itoh 8510 (?) which is still connected and working with my original Apple II. The C. Itoh only has a parallel port though...thanks for the tips!
Reminds me of our first printer when I was a kid. Loved watching that noisy chungus make its obnoxious noises!
That sound......i love that sound when printing.
I was shouting "Press form feed" when you were trying to get it going. Weird that I remembered that as I've not had one of those printers for a very long time.
I still have an Apple ImageWriter. I love those noisy printers. I want to use The Print Shop to make banners.
This gives you a fairly portable printer for your PDP-11/23! -Is there a tractor feed option for it?- You'll find tractor feed paper is _mo sukoshi takai,_ man. I hope the bunnies all do well going forward, Looks like they are off to a good start!
Something that occurs to me - I seem to remember that dot matrix printers often have a guide for the incoming feed of tractor-fed paper to keep it from getting caught on the back of the printer and tearing off the tractor feed strips.
some can be back fed, some fed from underneath (or both) the guides needed adjusting to accomodate which.
Sorry to hear about your animals 😔 glad that things are going a bit better :). My first printer was a rainbow 2000 with an IEC connection to my commodore this video definitely brings back memories 😊
Like many others, your favourite printer is a printer that actually works
The sound of a Dot Matrix printers is the one thing from vintage technology I don't miss
I do. I love that sound.
@@Gooberslot I imagine to those without sentive ears they would be lol
It's was like dragging a nail file across your teeth after a while
@@Jon6429 lol good way to describe it
My doctor's office still uses these ;)
Mounting the printer above the computer has me thinking: You can start writing Strong Bad Emails ending each with "E-mail StrongBad," "Preeeow World" or "The end."
@Usagi -- Try some rust converter on that rust. it will stop the process and revert back some of the rust to its base metal. Lengthening the life of the product.
Then apply the usual oil to protect it and add it to the yearly maintenance list.
Wow, looks and prints like new. Prints quite fast for a desktop dot matrix printer from this time period too.
DEC was one of my sponsors for grad school. This was a good choice as I'd go on to purchase a great deal of DEC equipment.
However, sadly I can't recall the model name, a Panasonic was my favorite dot matrix printer. It'd handle the widest paper. It had some color options, as I recall. It'd even handle printing labels. I think it's upstairs in my garage. I was still able to use it with WinME. It was great at labels.
I don't recall owning a DEC printer, but I"m sure I must have owned some. Then again, we had a dedicated print room at each office. They were expensive little cost sensors. We rented/leased gear, especially from XEROX, back then. It was very expensive but we needed to be able to print large numbers of documents and bind them. It was like $12k a month per print room and that was more than a decade and a half ago.
Issues with friction feed, excess ink on the platen (caused by printing off the paper or without paper), or just the rubber getting hard. What we used to use back in the 80's was acetone, to clean the platen. I'm not sure that is a good idea today, as that may damage the rubber on the platen. What you really need to do is restore the solvents to the elastomers and soften them back up.
Tractor feed is the way to go, as you said. It was just more reliable on these old printers. Sheet feeders were generally a nightmare that just never worked properly. They eventually figured it out, but in the 80's, tractor feed was king.
Dec and Apple used same printer "engine" from C. Itoh. LA50 & ImageWriter with later work with other PC's C. Itoh 8510 drivers. LA75 & ImageWriter II. HP and Apple used same thing with first 2 versions LaserJet & LaserWriter. All with different cases and logic boards running them with many mechanical parts could interchange between brands.
That looks exactly like the ribbon on my Imagewriter II! Also, you never cease to show your love for your animal family. Love to you and yours. (also the thing with the ears at 0:38 is hilarious. :D)
Of *course* it uses the same ribbon, Apple's printer mechanisms of the era were all made by C. Itoh, just like this "DEC" is a rebadged unit with a different sticker, the same as the original Apple DMP (with different ROMs for the Apple character set, etc.) The ImageWriter was also made by C. Itoh, and then the Imagewriter II used a C. Itoh mechanism inside a chassis built by Apple.