Been thinking of doing something similar, I have an Apple ImageWriter and Atari 1025 sitting in my basement. Does anyone know how long dot matrix ink ribbons last new?
If they're anything like typewriter ribbons of the era (and why wouldn't they be?), a really long time if you re-ink them periodically. I don't think any of my dad's fabric ribbons ever actually broke, and he typed a lot.
Some past comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41742210
Been thinking of doing something similar, I have an Apple ImageWriter and Atari 1025 sitting in my basement. Does anyone know how long dot matrix ink ribbons last new?
If they're anything like typewriter ribbons of the era (and why wouldn't they be?), a really long time if you re-ink them periodically. I don't think any of my dad's fabric ribbons ever actually broke, and he typed a lot.
Do you mean last as in how long until they dry out or last in how much you can print?
It's usually linear inches of text - which depends on how much you're printing.
Yeah print… reading anything from a few months to a year. Not bad for how cheap the ribbons are.
I feel like the author cannot tell a serial and a parallel port apart?
Author here, I didn't! I've updated the article to reflect the actual port (and have since learned the difference between the two).