Does anything similar currently exist? 
On this thread you are getting excellent descriptions of the history
of the situation.
To simulate dot matrix in the current environment I would set resolution
of about  80 x 5 = 400  by  66 x 7 = 462  and then downcast to black
and white via the method referred to as "Error Diffusion".
Just tried this...
  From a distance, the "picture" quality was
striking. 
Yup, same here.
John A.