The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi guys,

I picked up a small thermal printer that uses a serial interface - it works great with the QL. It has been fun to see it keep a record of moves with Psion chess.

Very nice! Would you like to tell us something more about your printer, or share some other pictures?

I found it on eBay, it's an HP brand, I think it's supposed to be used in conjunction with a cash register. I have included a close-up picture.

Is thermal paper for it expensive?

Back in the days of the good old Ser8056 thermal printer used by early QLers, the printer was fairly cheap but the paper very expensive.

Amazon sells 50 rolls of paper for this printer for around 35 Canadian dollars.

dilwyn wrote:Is thermal paper for it expensive?

Back in the days of the good old Ser8056 thermal printer used by early QLers, the printer was fairly cheap but the paper very expensive.

I still have my 8056 and it still gets used for a quick printout on BBQL occasionally. Still works as good as the day it came with my first QL (£199 deal), lots of other printers I've had have come and gone. Printer paper is just fax paper, which I got 6 rolls of cheap. The only problem is that paper fades in a few months - especially if in sunlight.

I should add, it was fun to "setup", in that you set the baud rate and other serial settings using the single paper feed button. It prints a menu on the paper and you chose menu options by the number of keypresses of the single button. So, it uses a lot of paper when you first set it up.

Looks perfect for it!

Silvester wrote:

dilwyn wrote:Is thermal paper for it expensive?

Back in the days of the good old Ser8056 thermal printer used by early QLers, the printer was fairly cheap but the paper very expensive.

I still have my 8056 and it still gets used for a quick printout on BBQL occasionally. Still works as good as the day it came with my first QL (£199 deal), lots of other printers I've had have come and gone. Printer paper is just fax paper, which I got 6 rolls of cheap. The only problem is that paper fades in a few months - especially if in sunlight.

Forgot it used fax paper rolls. Long time since I last needed fax paper, didn't know if it was scarce and expensive by now.

Yes, it fades, but generally it's for immediate or short term use really.

dilwyn wrote:

Silvester wrote:

dilwyn wrote:Is thermal paper for it expensive?

Back in the days of the good old Ser8056 thermal printer used by early QLers, the printer was fairly cheap but the paper very expensive.

I still have my 8056 and it still gets used for a quick printout on BBQL occasionally. Still works as good as the day it came with my first QL (£199 deal), lots of other printers I've had have come and gone. Printer paper is just fax paper, which I got 6 rolls of cheap. The only problem is that paper fades in a few months - especially if in sunlight.

Forgot it used fax paper rolls. Long time since I last needed fax paper, didn't know if it was scarce and expensive by now.

Yes, it fades, but generally it's for immediate or short term use really.

I use my Brother EP-22 as a printer for the QL. It's one of those old-school electrnoic typewriters made in the early 80's...my first "laptop" I used in college to write papers (it was my roomates until I found one myself on eBay a decade or two later). It takes either heat-transfer (fax) paper or cartridges that heat transfer the ink onto real paper. That latter is a bit costlier and scarce so I tend to just buy a roll of the fax paper and it wasn't that bad getting one new on eBay.