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Comment by arh68 | Hacker News Reader

Darn, I was hoping this would be nearly the opposite invention.

Is there a USB teletype out there? I'm trying to imagine something that converts keystrokes over USB to ink-on-paper. Not a full-blown printer w/ PostScript, just inking one letter at a time, manual carriage return, etc.

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Do you specifically want the swinging bar slamming the paper, or is it more about the sound? If it's just the sound, you might look into a daisy-wheel printer of some kind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_wheel_printing

Brother had a series of word processor machines that were basically DOS PCs with an extremely simple icon-based UI, an amber CRT (or later a B&W LCD), and a keyboard/printer housing that included a floppy disk drive. I bet you could hack one of the data buses on one of those things without too much effort.

HN user Animats restores old teletype machines. Here's a writeup.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9084788

http://www.aetherltd.com/refurbishing15.html

I had an idea for something like this, it would be like a daisywheel typewriter from the early 90s.

http://www.typewritersupply.com/brother_printwheel.JPG

But it might just be easier to use a parallel linkage, two small steppers and a 500 mw laser diode. Although not faster.

Not sure how much power a mems mirror could take, but it might speedup writing fancy glyphs.

Interesting! I hadn't seen a daisy wheel before. Nice to see they could print proportional fonts [1]. Pretty good for printing one character at a time.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFC5PyJdVIg

I am trying to figure out how to get rid of the ink ribbon. Ink sponge? Silk dam? Both would require a small pump to soak the medium with ink. Or make it gravity/capillary fed.

Now that we are on the subject of inappropriate low technologies, why not a reusable screen printing method? stainless steel screen, uv cured resist (use an xy laser to create pattern). Resist should disolve in hot water.

Or maybe use aluminum foil and laser to drill holes in the screen? I like this.

Hm. This might not be hard with modern digital typewriters, or at the least receipt printers. Electric typewriters have fairly standard keyboards, it wouldn't be too hard to put a transistor across the switches.

Now, mechanical typewriters.... that could be tricky. You'd need some heavy modification and some strong motors or solenoids.

It sounds like you're describing a typewriter. Where does the difference lie?

I think he wants the typewriter to basically be seen by the computer as a printer, then when you send a text document to it, have it sit there and "print" one by one. Think "player piano" instead of "computer playing keyboard via MIDI".

Well if you can find a "Letter-quality printer" and add a USB-parallel adapter you'll have this -- though the interpretation I had was a lot closer to 'printer that accepts a USB keyboard.'

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