I am trying to remember the exact year but I am drawing a blank. We had this matrix printer sometime between 1989 and 1994 in Hungary. What I distinctly remember is the front cover: it was solid, not opaque and it was not flat, it was a curved shape. I think there were noise dampening inserts inside it, just pieces of foam glued in. Most certainly it was parallel, Centronics, likely 9 pins.
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5Try searching for images of "early dot matrix printers", or "vintage dot matrix printers". Perhaps something will ring a bell.– Leo B.Commented Mar 21 at 3:02
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Centronix? Must've been an import then. I would be interested to know, was this printer imported before or after the rendszerváltás?– Omar and LorraineCommented Mar 21 at 12:40
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1We had the Star LC200 which likely means that a lot of people did; I’ll wager there’s a thousand models that fit your description though.– TommyCommented Mar 21 at 12:46
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I also had the Star LC200-series; maybe LC210 or LC220– Omar and LorraineCommented Mar 21 at 13:53
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2As soon as I saw "not flat" and "not opaque" I too thought of the Star series (LC-100 is pretty much identical). However, brown/grey translucent covers were rather common indeed in this era, and while most were flat, I'm sure Star wasn't the only one.– Maury MarkowitzCommented Mar 21 at 17:38
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1 Answer
I remembered it. Tonight the name flashed. It was a Mannesmann Tally MT81. See the wave like shape of the covers:
Image source: https://youtu.be/8pUU6I1i4TE the video shows the Centronics port at 0:37 too.
A Kagi search found a Hungarian ad for from 1991 which confirms it was not beyond the means of an ordinary household: before taxes the average monthly salary was 17 934 Ft at the time and a 20" Goldstar color TV apparently was 50% more than the printer (this was before Lucky and Goldstar merged, that was in 1995). Interesting tidbit: there is a Junior computer mentioned in the ad which I suppose was the Elektuur Junior as it was really cheap at the time. Also the mere fact of being able to find this ad so easily makes it likely it was quite widespread at the time.
