[Coco] [coco] Okidata ML 172 on my coco

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "George Ramsower" <georgeramsower at gmail.com>
> I can't find the manual on this ML 172 printer.

Looked around, but can't find that one.  got a Microline 390 here but it was 24-pin and as I recall the 172 was 8-pin.  I think my ex mother-in-law had one but she probably tossed the docs before she was put in the Alzheimers home.  Next time I talk to the Ex I'll ask.  (We talk on alternate birthdays and hers is coming up in a couple weeks and I think it's my turn to call).

> My first Ink Jet printer was an Olivetti Dry Ink Jet printer.
> I got that for my coco 2.
>  It used a glass ampule that held a sort of powder that when a HIGH voltage 
> was applied to the back side, would cause a spark to occur at the end 
> closest to the paper. The platten was conductive and the spark would carry s 
> spot of the "Dry Ink" and snap it onto the paper.
> It made a tiny little spot and worked pretty darn good for doing line 
> drawings. There was no shading, or control of the darkness of that spot. It 
> took dithering as in normat DMP printing to do that.
> 
>  It was so quiet, if you had a TV going, you might not even hear it 
> printing.. The paper feed mechanism made more noise than the print head, 
> however the platten moved is so small increments that it too, was almost 
> silent.
> 
>  It was quite a light show to watch it print. The spark was visible and 
> always astonished me how fast it zipped across the platten. It had to go 
> fast because it had to make a LOT of those little spots make a legible line 
> of text. Hence, the slow platten movement.
>  I still have a box of those Dry Ink Jet ampules. Wouldn't trade them for 
> the world. The printer is now parts... might be something from it that is in 
> one of my steam engines or maybe in something else.
>  I think it was around 1985 when I bought it. This was when Olivetti decided 
> to quit consumer sales and go strictly directed to business and it was a 
> close-out item.

Puts me in mind of the first printer I used at home.  Me and the spice had a 32-column Radio Shack Quick Printer II attached to the Model One from 1979 to 1981.  Aluminum coated paper that was burned by a spark to make a black spot.  Same technology as the Quick Printer I (80 Column) and the Screen Printer (memory mapped to a Mod One screen, it printed what you saw -- it was a pain to list a program -- I never owned one, but we had one set up at the first RSCC I worked at).  Quiet but great to watch with the lights off.  I doubt the tech passed the FCC rules that doomed the Mod One.

What printer parts can you use in a steam engine?  (I like retro-tech, but my interest in steam starts with nuclear reactors, still the cleanest and greenest energy source around).
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

"What I know [about the art of the sword] boils down to this:  If you see a guy running at you with a sword, put two rounds in his chest to slow him down, then one into his brain to finish him off".  Aaron Allston, _Sidhe Devil_