Calculator Printers

[Bill K. - USA]

Some random comments . . .

--I used to own a printer for my TI-59 calculator back in the day, though I never used it much.

--Some SwissMicros calculators have legacy support for the HP 82240A/B Infrared Printer. Unfortunately, HP stopped selling these decades ago, but you can find used ones for a hundred dollars, more or less. (YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIitsifTw04.)

--The WP43S project is chugging along, but it seems the lowest-priority features are the printer commands--likely for guessable reasons.

--The IR interface supported by the old HP calculators is the "Red Eye" protocol. There's an interesting paper on this here: https://www.mh-aerotools.de/hp/red-eye/ ... rduino.pdf, and there are others you can find on the web.

--I probably wouldn't have much desire for a calculator printer unless I could, say, buy an inexpensive SwissMicros-made IR Red Eye-to-USB adapter that could accept the Red Eye protocol and send the output directly to a USB Thermal Receipt printer. Is that something SwissMicros might consider making?

--You can find thermal receipt printers on Amazon for circa $40.
https://www.amazon.com/NETUM-Bluetooth- ... B07848ZBXT
https://www.amazon.com/TEROW-Portable-P ... 8ZBXT?th=1

--In addition to being able to print program-controlled output, and program listings, I'd like to be able to hit a button and print a calculator screen-shot.

--I probably don't have a great desire to print via the computer to a regular PC printer, for numerous reasons.

--In any event, a calculator printer isn't something I'd use often, but for some tasks it'd be very helpful.

Your thoughts?

[toml_12953]

--In addition to being able to print program-controlled output, and program listings, I'd like to be able to hit a button and print a calculator screen-shot.

--I probably don't have a great desire to print via the computer to a regular PC printer, for numerous reasons.

--In any event, a calculator printer isn't something I'd use often, but for some tasks it'd be very helpful.

Your thoughts?

I, too, would like a printer. Unlike you, however, I'd use it constantly for tracing and debugging programs, screen shots for articles and manuals and producing hard copy listings for documentation and including in articles.

Yes. For me, printing is essential.

[Walter]

FYI, there is a screenshot command on the WP43S called SNAP. It stores the snapshot (sic!) on the FAT disk. You can, of course, take several snapshots.

[Bill K. - USA]

FYI, there is a screenshot command on the WP43S called SNAP. It stores the snapshot (sic!) on the FAT disk. You can, of course, take several snapshots.

Yes, I had noticed that: a cool feature that I'm definitely interested in! When the printer commands are finished, will there be a simple way to print those snapshots straight from the calculator to a calculator printer?

[Walter]

Yes, I had noticed that: a cool feature that I'm definitely interested in! When the printer commands are finished, will there be a simple way to print those snapshots straight from the calculator to a calculator printer?

Yes in principle but such a command is not part of our function set yet. This doesn't mean it won't happen: software and imagination are without limits, aren't they? Though each and every byte in memory can be distributed only once. We'll remember it when we'll be at it.

[dlachieze]

When the printer commands are finished, will there be a simple way to print those snapshots straight from the calculator to a calculator printer?

Note that the snapshots from the DM4x screen have a 400x240 resolution while calculator printers such as the 82240A/B have only a graphic resolution of 166 dots per line.

[Bill K. - USA]

Note that the snapshots from the DM4x screen have a 400x240 resolution while calculator printers such as the 82240A/B have only a graphic resolution of 166 dots per line.

Bummer. There is the option of printing the calculator screen sideways of course, but that only gets us two-thirds of the way there.

I checked on the two thermal printers I listed above and they have 340 and 384 dots per line. There is also a $90 thermal printer that prints circa 640 dots per line (minus the margins) on the 80mm wide paper roll: https://www.amazon.com/Rongta-Commercia ... C51&sr=1-9.

I don't know how print functions operate on the DM42/WP43S--if they take dots per line as an input, or if they assume the default 82240A/B dots per line (which could be a nice setting to have should someone design a compatible Red Eye-to-USB converter for off-the-shelf thermal receipt printers).