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Comment by fyfy18 | Hacker News Reader

What are they used for today? I assume they have better reliability (from their simpler technology) compared to inkjet or laser printers, which keeps them popular in certain industries.

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Just a few days ago, I realized, the best thing to update somebody else's code, would be to print it out and take it to bed with me, so I can read the source without starring into that lamp (the monitor). I also could make notes with a pen, like placing the line number next to a function call (pointing to the function definition), etc.

Problem was, that the printout would have been over a hundred pages. Too expensive and feels like a waste of resources.

Then I remembered dot-matrix printers and checked out the market. They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.

My text-editor on the Amiga (in the 90's) would have a special print utility, that would allow to format the text (source code) in a way to fit as much text on the paper as possible, by choosing a smaller font, having multiple columns, etc.

Interestingly, nothing similar seems in production, these days.

So, ideally there'd be an affordable dot-matrix color printer, without a fixed line length (set it in the driver), and some pleasing monotype font for coders (including special chars like function arrows) as one of its internal charsets along with a utility I described above. My eyes would love it!

try a2ps, used to use it at University to get multiple pages on 1 sheet: https://www.gnu.org/software/a2ps/

They go about EUR200+ these days. Sadly, the one I'd liked (DIN A3 format, so to be able to print out long lines of code without wrapping, with 4 colors for some basic syntax highlite) are in the EUR1000 range.

The reason for this being that they're still produced with the same level of quality they used to be, while "consumer level" printers have become more cost-optimised and less reliable. Dot matrix printers are still used in commercial/industrial applications so they haven't been subjected to the same race-to-the-bottom that consumer printers have.

Yes, I understand. InkJets bring in the money via the ink and also, the market for dot-matrix must now be smaller, than it was, when that printing technique was the only affordable on the market.

If it's a hundred pages on laser, how is it going to be any fewer pages on dot matrix? It's not like dot matrix is going to magically improve spatial information density. Also toner is the most efficient use of ink, a ribbon is certainly not efficient.

The ink is a lot cheaper than toner.

That is, what I guess, though I have no numbers. That dot-matrix ribbon ink is cheaper than toner.

Also, I'd like to have a A3 sized, colored dot matrix printer. That as Laser would be extremly expensive.

Modern office inkjet printers can be quite cheap too, at ~3$ ink cost per thousand pages b/w. E.g. Canon's Pixma G series has models with integrated tanks you can refill with ink bottles (instead of cartridges).

Check out Sony DPT-RP1.

They also work with carbon paper, so they're popular for use cases where they want a stack of guaranteed-identical copies in one go (e.g. doctors offices still seem to have them quite often. print prescription, doctor signs it, copy for the records can be pulled off)

A lot of industries still rely on multipart carbon forms. Shipping is a big one.

One of the banks I used to use had them (okidata ml320 in that case) for the same reason.

Last time I saw them they were being used to print pay slips.

Pre-printed slips on continuous feed paper fed into the printers on tracks. The printer then prints the name/amount.

Same thing happens with checks. You can get them on continuous feed paper for dot matrix printers.

Lots of legacy applications for official documents I imagine.

I had the same question, so i looked it up. From Wikipedia:

> They are good, reliable workhorses ideal for use in situations where low printing cost is more important than quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing#Flatbed_do...

They're good for logging things, because they print one line (or character at a time), not one page at time. If you redirect your logfile to one, everything will be committed to paper once the line is finished, and you wont need to buffer things to disk or memory (where they are vulnerable to erasure by hackers or power failures) until you have a full page

Some places still use the 2 and 3 sheet carbonized receipts. Need an impact printer for those.

They are about an order of magnitude cheaper per page than laser printers.

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