
MX-80 – Ahead of its time: A small, lightweight computer printer - NuSkooler
https://global.epson.com/company/corporate_history/milestone_products/11_mx80.html
======
amiga-workbench
I have the IBM rebrand on my desk. It still works absolutely flawlessly and
you can get new ink ribbons fairly easily.

[http://mos6581.com/pictures/5170-canvas/new-
blinds.JPG](http://mos6581.com/pictures/5170-canvas/new-blinds.JPG)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vzMVK5kV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vzMVK5kV8)

~~~
billylo
Those IBM keyboard clicks and printing sound from the video brings back good
memories.

~~~
canada_dry
All that's missing to complete the picture...
[https://youtu.be/vvr9AMWEU-c?t=2](https://youtu.be/vvr9AMWEU-c?t=2)

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david-given
My father had one of these back in the day for the BBC Micro.

I remember struggling with painfully slow screen dump routines (for printing
an image of the screen onto paper) before someone had the insight that by
printing the images _sideways_ you could read a byte of horizontal scanline
data from memory and throw it directly at the printer, which treated it as a
vertical column of dots; this meant you didn't need the painfully expensive
step of rotating each 8x8 character cell.

Simple in hindsight, but it took ages to realise, and made screen dumps so
much simpler and faster.

~~~
Theodores
Classic combination - BBC Micro and MX-80.

Seems you were hacking yours differently to what I was doing. I acquired some
army headed letter (UK), or rather 'stole'. With it I forged a letter with my
MX-80 to trick a friend's parent to pop into the army recruitment centre.

This friend's parent had skived off National Service many aeons ago and I
pranked him into going back to account for himself. The letter 'had to be
legit' because it wasn't hand typed. So easily fooled. The things you do as a
small child that you would never do as an adult.

~~~
biggusdickus
You'd go to bloody prison for 20 years now for things we did in 80ies/early
90ies

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Starwatcher2001
Still have mine in the loft somewhere, that and the ribbon cable to attach it
to my TRS-80. Being able to print out program listings and annotate them
revolutionised debugging for me.

The "O" character and "0" number looked very similar, so we used to use a hack
to print "0", followed by a backspace escape code, and then a slash. That
produced a slashed zero.

~~~
donkeyd
> so we used to use a hack to print "0", followed by a backspace escape code,
> and then a slash. That produced a slashed zero.

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing, because as somebody who grow up with
windows 3.1 being the earliest OS, these stories are great.

~~~
int_19h
This sort of thing is actually exactly what backspace was originally for - it
predates computers, and was used on typewriters to e.g. make accented
characters, or underline text (ASCII has underscore as a symbol for that exact
purpose). You could also make things bold by doing backspace and then re-
printing the same character, one or more times.

~~~
vram22
Right, and that usage was later carried on to Unix man pages. Hence this tiny
but handy script I wrote (and have used for years), to strip those formatting
characters:

m, a Unix shell utility to save cleaned-up man pages as text:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/03/m-unix-shell-utility-
to-...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/03/m-unix-shell-utility-to-save-
cleaned-up.html)

------
googamooga
It was popular even in the USSR in mid-80s. MX-80 were brought in the Soviet
Union as a part of Yamaha MSX-2 based computer classes for Soviet children. I
remember my joy when I was able to print black and white New Year’s postcard
with nice fonts and graphics on that printer in 1985 :-)

~~~
agumonkey
You just reminded me how happy we were to pick and see fonts on these in
school ~computer days.

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somberi
Like to also draw attention to LX80, the dot matrix printer that followed
this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlccmP9TpFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlccmP9TpFo)

and

[http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6040/Epson-
LX-80/](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6040/Epson-LX-80/)

~~~
Synaesthesia
Oh yeah. Legendary printer. Lasted for absolute years and years.

------
rwmj
Also significant were the control codes. Many other printers offered Epson
control code emulation, such as the Amstrad DMP* printers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESC/P](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESC/P)

~~~
trebligdivad
I think the ESC/P was the newer ones after the LQ series. I spent many an hour
on our FX-80 (the successor to the MX-80), mostly doing label printing code
for my dad's pharmacy. With all the escape codes documented it was great. The
FX had the trick of being able to do reverse feed (From memory Esc [ 2j I
think - heck that was some time ago?)

~~~
dfox
LQ series used extended version called ESC/P2 (most of the extensions having
to do with higher resolution of 24-pin printers).

------
timonoko
I wasted the 1980's trying to invent ribbon re-inking method.

~~~
amiga-workbench
I don't know about re-inking, but can't you loosen up a dried ribbon by using
a light machine oil?

~~~
timonoko
I think not. The paper sucks the oil and it spreads. Ribbon ink has very
special dry but sticky qualities.

------
Aloha
Epson still makes dot matrix printers too.

[https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Impact/c/w160](https://epson.com/For-
Work/Printers/Impact/c/w160)

~~~
fyfy18
What are they used for today? I assume they have better reliability (from
their simpler technology) compared to inkjet or laser printers, which keeps
them popular in certain industries.

~~~
zmix
Just a few days ago, I realized, the best thing to update somebody else's
code, would be to print it out and take it to bed with me, so I can read the
source without starring into that lamp (the monitor). I also could make notes
with a pen, like placing the line number next to a function call (pointing to
the function definition), etc.

Problem was, that the printout would have been over a hundred pages. Too
expensive and feels like a waste of resources.

Then I remembered dot-matrix printers and checked out the market. They go
about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be
able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some
basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.

My text-editor on the Amiga (in the 90's) would have a special print utility,
that would allow to format the text (source code) in a way to fit as much text
on the paper as possible, by choosing a smaller font, having multiple columns,
etc.

Interestingly, nothing similar seems in production, these days.

So, ideally there'd be an affordable dot-matrix color printer, without a fixed
line length (set it in the driver), and some pleasing monotype font for coders
(including special chars like function arrows) as one of its internal charsets
along with a utility I described above. My eyes would love it!

~~~
userbinator
_They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I 'd liked (DIN A3 format,
so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors
for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range._

The reason for this being that they're still produced with the same level of
quality they used to be, while "consumer level" printers have become more
cost-optimised and less reliable. Dot matrix printers are still used in
commercial/industrial applications so they haven't been subjected to the same
race-to-the-bottom that consumer printers have.

~~~
zmix
Yes, I understand. InkJets bring in the money via the ink and also, the market
for dot-matrix must now be smaller, than it was, when that printing technique
was the only affordable on the market.

------
therealmarv
I still remember them and printing (very loud) TrueType fonts documents with
TextMaker from DOS.

------
jgrahamc
I loved that printer. Did so much with it and was the first time I really did
a bunch of stuff with ESC sequences. Bidirectional printing was cool and
getting it to print graphics by driving the print head directly felt like
magic. Anyone who programmed that printer will be instantly at home with Epson
(and compatible) thermal printers and more.

~~~
trop
Indeed! I remember using one to print zooms of the Mandelbrot set in grayscale
(highly dithered) from an Apple ][+. For speed I coded in 6502 and called
directly into the BASIC floating point routines for the math. The printer
would take a day or so to print a sheet worth of image. But it was a great
graphic output device, far less ephemeral than the screen. It was somewhat
satisfying for it to print a new row of dots every now and then, once the
computer had completed some math...

------
tabtab
I remember those, and often prefer them over ink-jet because one could often
fix any problems themselves. With ink-jets, if there's problems, it's hard to
see what's actually going on. You usually have to rely on software drivers to
diagnose and/or clean them, which often fail for some reason (probably version
compatibility). I'm really disappointed with ink-jets. The higher-quality dot-
matrix ribbons rarely broke, just got tangled. You could untangle it and get
back to work. The problems and solutions were more clear-cut, hands-on, and
visual. If they could make dot-matrix printers match the resolution of ink-
jets, I just may get one, at least as a back-up.

------
bitwize
There was a program called Fancy Font that let you do a primitive form of DTP
on one of these. You typed up your document in the Fancy Font markup language
and then sent it off to the printer using the Fancy Font runoff program
(called 'pfont'), which would print out the document, using graphics mode to
render the, er, fancy fonts.

Documents printed out this way on a dot matrix printer looked like ass, so
when they became available Fancy Font supported the new exciting HP LaserJets.

------
bhauer
We had a similar model with the name of FX-80. A photo I just found:

[1] [http://i2.wp.com/www.applerescueofdenver.com/wp-
content/uplo...](http://i2.wp.com/www.applerescueofdenver.com/wp-
content/uploads/fx80-537594-5.jpg)

Not sure how it compared to the MX-80, but it was definitely a great printer
for its time. I remember finally replacing it was a 24-pin (oh the luxury) dot
matrix printer after years of service by the FX-80.

------
cmrdporcupine
Used one of these back in the day. Excellent machines. Paper feed was so much
more reliable and error-free compared to modern printers. And when things went
wrong a reset and restart of the job was simple. Now I have to revere the
psychology of the machine, and hope to god that its fragile plastic innards
don't break.

I'd willingly return to needing special printer paper if it meant I didn't
have issues with the feeding mechanism.

~~~
maxerickson
Have you tried a Brother laser?

~~~
tom_
Add me to the list of people supporting this message. Mine is 13 years old and
I've never had a problem with it.

(The UI is very simple: one button. I don't know what it does, as I've never
needed to press it. If a document fails to print, that just means the thing is
out of paper.)

------
ars
I still have mine somewhere in storage. I bet it would even still work if I
got a USB->Parallel port adapter.

------
cududa
Funny - I was _just yesterday_ advertised one of these via the Amazon widget
on Facebook

~~~
ssdd
I would call it weird! OP surely received similar advertise that led to this
post. Why would someone advertise such an old tech now?

------
ilaksh
Is there an emulator that handles this printer? I am working on a 3D multicore
libretro frontend with Lua scripting. It would be interesting for me to have
virtual printouts (images) to go along with a 3d model for something like
this.

------
aquamo
I saved up money to buy one of these in college, was amazing, fast, sounded
like a well tuned race car :-) Still have some CSCI homework and projects on
paper printed on this from my Atari ST.

------
epynonymous
i owned one of these back in the 90's, i remember connecting this to my compaq
286 with a lpt1 port or whatever you call it. no color, but i remember
printing nude gifs i had back thrn of playboy playmates.

fyi, in china, when you eat at restaurants or buy things from stores you get
these government tax receipts which are typically printed with these epsons,
that's almost 30 years since i first started using these.

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abdulhaq
Throwing away the manual to my Epson printers was a difficult thing to do but
marked a milestone in a nerds life in that era

~~~
zmix
You mean, you threw away the manual, so you'd have to find out everything
yourself, by playing/hacking with the system?

Man, that'd be some real "Guy Hardening" you did there :-). Like, leaving your
clothes at home and having a walk in the snow naked, sliding down the hill
like a seal and rolling yourself back up.

~~~
abdulhaq
It's all part of my S.A.S. preparation.... currently doing survival training
in a no internet situation

------
apiudit
I recall designing fonts for the mx80 in basic, the user manual was my first
programming "book".

------
kmeade
MX-100 and green bar, for the win! (smile)

