Modern thermal printer to emulate 82240B

[tcab]

(07-06-2018 01:59 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I couldn't help wondering if a non-thermal printer would suffice.

What makes thermal printers unique is their ability to print a single line at a time vs. a normal Windows/Mac/Linux desktop printer which always prints a page at a time.

Thus I don't think printing from Print42 to a non-thermal desktop printer would achieve what people expect of a "calculator printer tape" experience, which is that "line by line" behaviour. For example if you execute the PRX command on the Free42 calculator which emits one line to the virtual tape file, what would you expect to be printed to the regular desktop printer - a single page with a single line at the top? Or would you expect nothing to be printed till the page filled up - whenever that might be? You see the problem. With thermal printers you can emit that single line immediately and even tear it off if you want, for study.

You can always copy selections of Free42 print output from Print42, paste into some other software like Wordpad/Textedit then print that to a regular printer. Or I could make it easier and add a "print selection to desktop printer" feature, if that would be useful to people. There already is a "print selection" to thermal printer.

Hope this all makes sense?
Andy