And now for something completely different

(Well, not COMPLETELY, but close)

Gears shift a little

I decided to change what I wanted to do next. The next steps were of course to start getting the disk drives online, and then the hard drive, and give you all the secret sauce to get there. Looking at the desk, though, my entire setup wasn’t going to fit. It actually took 2 tables before as I mentioned, but I didn’t have space in my office for that, so I used the flat one so I could move things around as needed. I plan on making this piece of equipment still part of the “big picture”, but for now I just needed to know it worked.

Gutenberg ain’t got nothing on me!

No, not the NJ town. (Plus it has 2 T’s). I mean Johannes Gutenberg, the printing press guy. I was going to try to get my printer going. Apparently, I even had a backup for that. But I knew mine immediately. It was the Epson MX-80 (And would you believe its still actually mentioned on the Epson website after all this time?! I KNOW!! I don’t know what possessed me, but I decide to Google “EPSON MX-80 Ribbon” thinking that I would have to buy some kit and re-ink it myself. I could see myself sitting in the back yard in full PPE gear attempting it and STILL getting it all over me. BUT NO! They made the EPSON 8750 cartridge that says right on the box its for MX-80’s! I wasn’t going to complain, even at twice the price.

While I was waiting on the cartridge, I started to clean up the MX-80. Since this happened to be packed REALLY nice, it was pretty much spotless. I wiped down the rails a little and that its. I had found my printer cable, but to be safe I ordered a new one from eBay.

The hardest part (Besides waiting for things from Australia) was the paper. That actually took a while. I wanted fan feed, tractor, rippable edges. THIS was more expensive than I thought, $34 for 1000 pages. But, in for a penny, in for a LOT of pennies. Amazon got me what I needed to start.

Was a sextuple in the making?

Mind out of the gutter. Just means 6 of something. So, I cleared the space on the desk, put the printer, fan fold, the organizers where the paper came out of and went back into (Those were filthy) , hooked up the printer, hooked up the cable, started my system (MAKING SURE TO KEEP BREAK PRESSED)

(Don’t mind that round thing top left, that’s not part of the computer, its a bug zapper. That used to be my Carolina Reaper and Dragons Breath growing area, and some of the little gnats and stuff are still around)

>10 LPRINT "HELLO WORLD! ";
>20 GOTO 10

Remarkable, huh? Just one extra letter. I always thought the “L” was for “LinePRINT”. Not sure, never checked. 😉 So I just typed run, and the most wonderful thing happened! The light blinked as if it was getting data, and it printed!

LO WORLD! HELLO WORLD!

Well, it printed but just HELLO and stopped. Meh, NOW I’ve ruined the streak. I decided to give it some assistance along the rail, and try again. It printed “LO WORLD! HELLO WORLD!”. Not looking good. So I again , um, assisted it in going across the rail. And tried again.

It bloody WORKS!

After the 2 initial helps, it just kept printing on its own. I missed the DIT DIT DIT of a dot matrix, its been FOREVER. Just to double check, I use “LLIST”. That came out beautifully too.

So long and thanks for all the printing

Unfortunately, I think I need to buy a longer printer cable so I can keep it on top of the bookshelf with my other printer/scanner/fax/airfryer/convection oven/whatever else All-In-One printer. But, that’s for a later day. But I have printing. Despite the bit of set back, I was feeling good. But was that to be short lived? Will 7 things be my unlucky number?