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> The Adam came with a dot matrix printer.

It was a daisy wheel printer. No graphics, but "letter quality".

> Back then, using audio tapes to hold data was revolutionary, in terms of storage space and price.

Those aren't ordinary cassettes - while it is possible to make an Adam cassette out of a normal audio cassette, it's a somewhat involved process. There was hardware sold back then to do it, as the Adam itself couldn't.






>> Back then, using audio tapes to hold data was revolutionary, in terms of storage space and price.

> Those aren't ordinary cassettes

Years earlier, my Color Computer (from that other leather company, Tandy) was reading and writing to ordinary cassettes (also sold by Radio Shack).

The folks I knew who could afford Apple IIs had the cash to spend on floppy drives but I think their computers supported cassettes.

I had friends in pre-Adam days who had Commodores and one with a TI-99, all of which had plain old cassette storage, too. In the 70s-80s that was slow but affordable. This was anything but revolutionary for the Adam.


Daisy wheel printers were so cool. Is anyone making them anymore ?

I don't think so. Dot matrix covers the niches where impact printers make sense and laser and inkjets cover those where they don't. There might be someone making typewriters, but I don't think any of those can be (easily) used as a printer.

I'm looking into converting one into a teletype by doing a MITM between keyboard and logic board.


Dot matrix printouts tend towards crap. Daisy wheels made crispness achievable and evoked the Selectric. My 0,02€.



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