MMD > Archives > January 1997 > 1997.01.12 > 07Prev  Next


Printer for Word Rolls
By Richard Moody

I "found" a printer whose platen will take an 88 note roll.  It is a daisy
wheel printer, "Blue Chip" brand name.  It ran from a commodore 64/124.
The connectors are serial, 6-pin DIN.  I bought it new in 1986(?), it has
printed less than 500 pages. It has been stored and forgotten until I came
across it today.  Has an extra ribbon even.  Does not have tractor feed.

The platen is 12 inches wide.  The paper release is enough to pass through
the music roll tab.  The format appears to be pica as there is a scale
that reads from 0 to 80 on the bar that has the little rollers that holds
the paper against the platen.  The striker hits on the 80 and on the 0.
0 - 80 is 8 inches wide.  There are 2 more inches of platen on each side
of those marks.

Has the technical manual, and only talks about Commodore.  Unfortunatly I
don't have the Commodore computer to run it and answer questions, like how
far to the right or left will it print.  If there is interest in this you
can have it for postage and handling, which should be under $20. If you
can tell me how to get it running from a PC, I'll give you $20.

... I just wound a roll through, words up.  The words appear on the left
of the printer and upside-down.  Hmmm-um.  Perhaps a platen printer might
be cumbersome.  Unless a daisy wheel can be turned upside down.  So to
avoid having to print upside-down one would have to start from the end of
the roll, right?  This would also have to be done if using a dot matrix
printer, right?  Well, you could roll it in from the front, but then the
platen would have to reverse directions. ...

Say, this is getting complicated.  Who the heck decided that player rolls
should roll down instead of up?  Maybe you need one of those blue print
size printers they use in CAD.  Any architects in the list?

I am interested if there are ink jet printers that might print player
rolls.  Has there been an article on how they actually printed the word
rolls?

Richard Moody



(Message sent Sat, 11 Jan 1997 18:35:00 -0600 , from time zone -0600.)

Key Words in Subject:  Printer, Rolls, Word