Something new I've never seen before...have you?

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

I have just seen something new that I've never seen before.

It is called a Kodak IS70...it looks old to me, but the age doesn't seem to fit the norm.

Supposedly it's an old copier that connects to a computer and has four colors online, but they are only for highlight...and it folds and staples.

Maybe it's nothing special but I rarely come across something I haven't really seen before...is70.JPG

[fixthecopier]

Yes, my first year, I was sent to fix a "band printer". If you can picture two steel pulleys, with a steel band wrapped around them about 4 feet wide. Every character of symbols numbers and letters was stamped on the band. The band moved back and forth on the pulleys and a hammer stamped the characters on it with an ink strip under the band. I was so proud I fixed it and of course no body else gave a shit.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

wow. that is something impressive.

[I3FusionGuy]

I had a call for a band printer once....it was almost as tall as I was. The logic that drove the sensors went bad, and the THREE 16x16 S-100 bus boards that ran the device were bad. I found this out by taking them out, removing 30 years of dust, and switching DIP switches and observing LIGHT BULBS on the boards...not LEDS...BULBS!

So this thing was bricked.....it was in an AS/400 room for a large Aerospace factory. The grey beard UNIX/AS400 guy was as stumped as I was.

Lo and behold, under a dust cover I was setting the hardbound engineering manual on.....was a brand new, never used Printronix 6300 shuttle printer, built into the floor - already configured to the AS/400....Unix guy switched it on, and the band printer was mothballed.

[fixthecopier]

You are the only other person I know who has worked on one. Mine was on an Air Force base.

[Rob Sandberg]

I had a DEC band printer under contract for 5 yrs.

The first repair was for overheating, removed mouse from fan, tested good.
The second repair was for the band tensioner spring that had broken. Since the spring was not advailible I folded up a business card and stuffed it behind the tensioner. It worked for years.

This was at a nuclear reservation.

Rob S

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Makes you kind of wonder what else is out there yet. The oldest and oddest thing I have seen personally in real life is an old printing press of some sorts from the late 1800's'ish era that had long ago been converted to have electricity and the print shop used it to print only on envelopes...apparently either by luck, design, or simplicity it was supposed to be very reliable to do envelopes on.

Other than that, I still see some high volume "ribbon ink" continuous forms printers out there and apparently IBM and Tally Genicom still sell them. I suppose it's still an economical option for warehouses, data centers, etc.

[mrwho]

Other than that, I still see some high volume "ribbon ink" continuous forms printers out there and apparently IBM and Tally Genicom still sell them. I suppose it's still an economical option for warehouses, data centers, etc.

I have a local newspaper that uses two of those to print the subscriber's addresses that go with each newspaper that is delivered home. They're cheap, reliable, fast and, although the quality is weak, it doesn't really matter.

[TonerMunkeh]

I had a DEC band printer under contract for 5 yrs.

The first repair was for overheating, removed mouse from fan, tested good.
The second repair was for the band tensioner spring that had broken. Since the spring was not advailible I folded up a business card and stuffed it behind the tensioner. It worked for years.

This was at a nuclear reservation.

Rob S

All I can say is it's good thing you're not a reactor engineer