[rescue] the folly of getting a sparcprinter 1 running fro scratch

[Lionel Peterson]

To be fair, as designed, printers consume toner, and absent a source of
suitably- packaged toner for this 2 or 3 decade-old printer, getting it
'running' may be  very hollow victory indeed.

Repairing an old tape drive to read 25 year-old tapes? Makes perfect sense.

Trying to restore a unique/proprietary monitor to use an older computer that
requires it - sounds like a great idea.

Rehabilitating a unique keyboard or mouse to complete the original
user-experience, I'm right there with you.

But as a working peripheral, aside from the inherent technical challenges
getting a NewsPrinter to operate doesn't really seem to me to be a practical
exercise (aside from the 'because I want to' reason). The device consumes
paper and toner, and while the paper is easy to source, the toner not so much,
and once running, will the printer actually provide ANY unique or special
capabilities beyond what a $100 consumer laser printer would to justify
manually refilling 25 year-old toner cartridges?

It's not wrong (IMHO) to reasonably ask someone heading into an exercise they
themselves describe as "folly" to consider more practical solutions to the
problem at hand.

If the OP lived in a remote location and only had access to this one printer -
I get it. If the user is trying to create a museum experience, I get it. But
if he wants a way to print out source code listings...

Opinions vary, the above is mine, everyone is entitled to their own.

Take care,

Ken (Lionel)

> On Sep 1, 2019, at 6:13 PM, Dan Sikorski <me at dansikorski.com> wrote:
>
> Nothing that youbve said is technically incorrect.
>
> However, you may have joined the wrong mailing list.  You can buy a
raspberry pi for $35 that will "pretty much do" everything that the majority
of machines discussed here do.