Wel, OK, I regater old computer periphearls as being interesting, but far too many people think that the CPU is the only bit worth colelcting. s an aside, I regard injet and laser printers as being dot-matrix... There are some weird printer designs around. Some things you might try t ofind if you don't already have them : One of those 4-colour pritner/ploters using the Alps mechanism. Everybody and his dog sold them at some poitn -- Tandy CGP115, Commodore 1520, there was an Atari oen, a Sharp one, theOric printer, etc. Sticking with 'small', Epson made a little impact dot matrix mechansim that had a carriage that shuttled back and forth with IIRC 4 solenoids/pins on it. It printed a lien of dots (fire the solenoids apporpirately as the carriace shuttles), then moved the paper up one dot line and did the next line, et.c. It's the mechanism in the HX20 internal printer, but Iv'e see nit elsewere too Then you should try to find one of those pritners that took metalised paper and burnt away the coating with a spark electrode. The Sinclair ZX printer is progbably the easiest to find, but there wwere many, maany, others Of course you should have a thermal printer. HP made many of them. Some had full-width fixed printheads (the HP9866 is a favorite of mine, mainly becuase of the machine it normally goes with), If you cna fidn one , the HP7245 is a strange beast. Not just a 12 element thermal printer (with the eelments in a diagonal line across the head, so it prints jsut as well verticlally ans horizontally), but also a thermal plotter using s 13th element and moving the paper and carriage around like a pen plotter. The downside is that it needs unobtainmable sporoketed thermal paper, but.... Versatec (and others?) made a line of electrostatic printers. They build up a charge inamge on coated paper and then pass liquid toner over it. Getting on to impact-and-ribbon type thigns, there are hte almost fully mechanicla teleprinters. The mechanisms in those are fascinating to me. Then there are printers hwich, by design, take sevearl pases to printer a line. Sanders Associates made a range tht could sensibly do 8 pases and put the dots i nthe right places. THese moved the paper up fracitonally after each line. The DEC LA100 did 2 pases buyt kept the paper fixed nad roicked the printhead. Fro mthe sublime to the ridiculous, there's the Olivetti JP101. This odd thing uses a rod of toner 9rpesumably carbon-based and geneartes a partk form the end fo that to a fixed electrode. This blasts some of the toner onto the paper. It's not very legible, it smudges easily, but it's so odd that IMHO it's worth colelcting. -tony