Which dot-matrix printer will work on my Ubuntu 9.10 machine - Old Hardware Warning (Rashkae)

[Mark Syms]

> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:02:38 -0400
> From: Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com>
> Subject: Re: Which dot-matrix printer will work on my Ubuntu 9.10
> 	machine	- Old	Hardware Warning
> To: "Ubuntu user technical support,	not for general discussions"
> 	<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <4BCFBC4E.5090107 at tigershaunt.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Dedhi Sujatmiko wrote:
>> On Thursday 15,April,2010 10:01 PM, Rashkae wrote:
>>> The pertinent details are whether the printer is standard width or
wide
>>> carriage, and 9-pin vs. 24-pin.  So generally, you only have 4
possible
>>> configurations to deal with.
>>>    
>> 
>> That is very true. However, connecting dot matrix printer into current 
>> Ubuntu has its own problem, which is connectivity.
>> 1. I notice there are dot matrix printer, I think made by Epson, which 
>> has USB only connector. It may not be using the same emulation as the 
>> paralel port dot matrix printer
> 
> There are few reasons to use dot matrix printers anymore besides support

> for the plethora of legacy software.  Sure, carbon copy is oft. cited, 
> but I seriously doubt carbon copy paper is less expensive than simply 
> spitting out 2 copies collated.  While it's true that lots of things 
> have taken me by surprise over the years, I would be floored to find 
> someone actually manufacturing a dot matrix printer that doesn't support

> the legacy emulation.  (ps, all the epson usb dot matrix printers I see 
> also support at least parallel, and sevleral models, serial. )

It's usually not a cost thing for using carbon triplicate paper but rather
to produce things like receipts and invoices that can then be signed using
a ballpoint pen and the signature goes through all copies (as well as the
original printing). For instance, my girlfriend works for an auction
company and they use dot matrix printers (admittedly with Windows) for
exactly this reason, and yes it causes problems when buying new laptops as
they don't have parallel ports.

Mark.