4 Feb
2011
4 Feb
'11
11:08 a.m.
The original 4631 printer is a completely analog
device that scans out
the storage tube and transfers the electrical signal to a dry silver
paper for printing. This design will treat the analog signal supplied
to the printer as a signal for digitizing into a raster image. I plan
on housing mine inside a 4632 video hardcopy shell with a modern printer
inside driven by the controller. Who knows, this project might make
those 4631/4632 printers useful again, considering that noone is going
to be getting a new supply of dry silver paper anytime soon.
I actually have a couple of rolls of paper still in original cardboard
cylinders. Probably long dead, though.
However...
I only have one 4631, not working. At present it is only a museum
piece, but if I eviscerate it to put in a modern printer, it is not even
that. In addition, while I could easily afford a modern
printer to transplant
into the 4631 case, why should I when I have a perfectly good printer
already, plugged into my PC?
As I see ot, the main problem iwt hte 4631 is that the consumables (in
this case spcial paper) are unavailable now. But if you design a
replacement round a particular modern printer (say an inkjet), that is
likely to have the same problem in a few years time. Getting consuables
for older inkjet and laser printers is non-trivial.
I'd prefer to take the raster image and save it in
a suitable file
format (TIFF?) for putting on a PC and printing on any old printer.
This would make it much more flexible, and I think it would be of
benefit to do so.
On approach would be to have a suiable memory device (USB stick, SD card,
etc) conncted to the interfce. And have it store the image on that. I can
later be printed of viewed on a PC.
-tony