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I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

aschmelyun.com

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Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#91

Post by jonpalmisc »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I thought about doing something like this so I could turn the tickets I work on into paper tickets but never quite got around to it. (I did buy a cheap receipt printer on eBay though and managed to burn it out in the first 10 minutes of printing. ProTip: a receipt printer with the width specified in inches is likely to be a quality printer by a reputable manufacturer, one specified in mm is likely to be a piece of ju…

What’s the reason behind the inches vs millimeters distinction? I understand it’s just a heuristic but I don’t get what the underlying cause is.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#92

Post by jacobmartin »

the_arun wrote: post #40
julianlam wrote: post #33

> Wrapping up and next steps The only logical next step here is to get that metal spike thing, so you can stab closed issues on completion.

Get to etch them on stone - go further back in time.

Damnatio memoriae if the issue is actually "functions as intended" and that can be clearly seen from the documentation?

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#93

Post by hh3k0 »

aschmelyun wrote: post #34
scottlamb wrote: post #21

This is a fun idea, but I've read thermal paper is surprisingly nasty stuff. [Edit: unless it's advertised as "phenol-free".] It's not just paper. It contains plastics (BPA or BPS) that you absorb through your skin when handling it. I'd avoid working with receipts at my desk all day. (I'd also avoid being a grocery store cashier...) https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape...

Yeah, the machine came with a few spools of BPA-free paper, but that just means there's a less-tested alternative like some of the responses are saying. I was a cashier for 4 years though, so this is probably a drop in the bucket for what's already in my system.

> Yeah, the machine came with a few spools of BPA-free paper [...]

Or so they said on AliExpress.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#96

Post by SllX »

iamjackg wrote: post #84
alttab wrote: post #67

You should get a camera and write an OCR scanner that automatically scans the receipts as they are printed, then pushes it into a DB so you can view all your issues via a simple web application, replete with tracking, reminders, and then an e-mail integration that e-mails the opener of the issue when you put a comment on the receipt that's printed and rescanned.

This reminds me of a comment I read a long time ago about somebody's experience working for a company that had a branch in Japan. They would demand that some spreadsheets be sent as a fax, and then some employee would be tasked with re-typing all that information back into a spreadsheet later on.

Someone once told me this is how they share source code between departments at some software shops in Japan.

I still refuse to believe this is true.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#97

Post by daenz »

leipert wrote: post #76

I would recommend switching to their Events API. Webhooks are great until they aren’t. Querying the Events API means you are able to resume if GitHub, your network or your Raspberry Pi was down. And bonus, your pi doesn’t need to be exposed to the world.

Pull vs push? Why not both! Then you'll get the benefits of low latency and robustness.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#98

Post by urbandw311er »

daenz wrote: post #12

There's something about a physical reference to information that you can't quite capture digitally. You can hand it to someone. You can use it as a prop to express your happiness or frustration. You can destroy. I know this was a fun project but I hope we can capture more physical interactions in the future, and not just in VR.

Sorry to be ‘that guy’ but it is also a little bit wasteful.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#99

Post by w0m »

jonpalmisc wrote: post #91
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I thought about doing something like this so I could turn the tickets I work on into paper tickets but never quite got around to it. (I did buy a cheap receipt printer on eBay though and managed to burn it out in the first 10 minutes of printing. ProTip: a receipt printer with the width specified in inches is likely to be a quality printer by a reputable manufacturer, one specified in mm is likely to be a piece of ju…

What’s the reason behind the inches vs millimeters distinction? I understand it’s just a heuristic but I don’t get what the underlying cause is.

english == Made in America; Quality. metric == Chinese; Piece of crap

is the intention I think. Not a fair distinction imho, but to each their own.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#100

Post by EsotericAlgo »

These printers also have an expansion network card.

A decade ago I worked on a project to deploy a couple hundred of these to a restaurant chain as part of a POC for an online ordering program for pickup orders. The requirement for each franchisee was to acquire a static IP and configure one of these printers to bind that static address using a network card that replaced the serial connection. The online interface from the vendor was configured with that static address and sent text over TCP to print the incoming orders. The printer than just printed whatever it received.

The project was initially deployed without any whitelisting or authentication (at the vendors behest) so for a couple months these printers were printing a mixture of garbage and scan attempts from random devices connecting. It was quite humorous at the time but scares the hell out of me given the other things that were on that internal network. The project failed for other reasons, but it looks like that particular vendor is still around.

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