alt.hn

4/25/2026 at 11:39:53 AM

Getting my daily news from a dot matrix printer 2024

 https://aschmelyun.com/blog/getting-my-daily-news-from-a-dot-matrix-printer/

by xupybd

4/27/2026 at 7:23:57 PM

This is good because it's the daily news. Meaning, it ends. You get informed, not addicted.

That's one reason I use dead trees. The news ends. I get informed, and I'm the customer not the continuously-scrolling feed addict.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be on top of every breaking news event. If there's something very important that you must know about, you will hear sirens or see an orange glow on the horizon.

by reaperducer

4/27/2026 at 3:33:45 PM

I was not as surprised as the author that a 1980s printer doesn't support Unicode. Possibly because I owned a Star SG-10 around 1985 or 86.

by chihuahua

4/27/2026 at 4:15:46 PM

I wasn't born just yet, haha!

by aschmelyun

4/28/2026 at 8:41:09 PM

Thank you for the great article!

by xupybd

4/28/2026 at 5:30:41 AM

I started printing out my calendar every morning on a dot-matrix printer as my alarm. It sure does its job, since it’s so loud and grating it wakes me up without fail. Needless to say, I don’t find it as ASMR-esque as OP, haha.

by malicka

4/27/2026 at 6:43:59 PM

I find it funny that it only prints the headlines from reddit, true reddiots only read the headlines and the comments.

by avgDev

4/28/2026 at 7:45:33 AM

For decades, I have joked about "people printing out the internet" or having it printed out for them.

Nowadays, things like these are an obvious exercise in mental sanity, and I kinda envy this person.

Also, using a dot matrix printer is just beautifully retro. Love this project.

by shmeeed

4/27/2026 at 9:14:36 PM

I feel like this could be expanded into a printable daily newspaper project with all the sections newspapers have, customize-able; and also just a digital version for people who don't wanna print. (I've been circling around creating a project like that for myself)

by erelong

4/27/2026 at 9:22:37 PM

I've had this in my backlog for a while now. If you ever move forward with yours, let me know!

by aschmelyun

4/27/2026 at 1:20:47 PM

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?

by crims0n

4/27/2026 at 9:34:22 PM

When you think “this is terrible, maybe I need a new printer” it is time to change the ribbon…ink ribbons don’t die all at once, their print just keeps getting lighter.

And yes, people bought new printers instead of replacing the ribbon because the print from the latest model in the store looked so much better than what they had at home.

by brudgers

4/27/2026 at 2:55:20 PM

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.

EDIT: Not "professional secretary" levels, but a lot. Enough that he bought a Selectric II for use at home.

by devilbunny

4/27/2026 at 1:26:14 PM

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.

by bombcar

4/27/2026 at 2:15:39 PM

Yeah print… reading anything from a few months to a year. Not bad for how cheap the ribbons are.

by crims0n

4/27/2026 at 6:26:56 PM

[dead]

by finaard

4/27/2026 at 4:32:28 PM

I found a nearly new daisy wheel printer in my storage. Something like this might be a good use of it.

by kjs3

4/27/2026 at 8:08:05 PM

I remember that NLQ font, I had Star's SG-10C with Commodore IEC interface as a kid

I miss bitmap fonts

by LocalH

4/27/2026 at 6:14:30 PM

Nice work. (The author is right, that printing ASMR in the video is incredible.)

by olivierestsage

4/27/2026 at 6:25:12 PM

Back in the early 90s I've discovered that there's not really any backchannel happening when printing to a dot matrix printer over the parallel port. And adding multiple ISA parallel port cards set to same IO address wouldn't cause any hardware issues, but just spit out the same data on all cards.

Which meant, as long as no paper was jamming, I could send data all three printers I had access to at the time could understand, and would save 1/3rd of printing time by having everything spit out in parallel.

My mother (parents bedroom adjacent to mine) did not think that'd qualify as ASMR at 2 in the morning.

by finaard

4/27/2026 at 2:03:33 PM

I feel like the author cannot tell a serial and a parallel port apart?

by LtWorf

4/27/2026 at 2:49:09 PM

Author here, I didn't! I've updated the article to reflect the actual port (and have since learned the difference between the two).

by aschmelyun

4/27/2026 at 7:55:55 PM

Thanks!

by LtWorf