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I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

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Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#131

Post by gopaz »

andix wrote: post #104
EsotericAlgo wrote: post #100

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 fr…

They are quite fast (200mm/s). If you send a malicious job you have 12m of paper sticking out of the printer within a minute :D

Fujitsu fp-2200 can print 400mm/s, it's quite mind boggling how fast the paper comes out :)

Also if you hold feed while power on you get a interactive menu, printed on paper. Probably works on Epson printers also

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#132

Post by phphphphp »

daneel_w wrote: post #124

I don't mean to critique the creation, but nobody would bat an eye at an identical solution printing the issues on a normal A4 desktop printer. The lyrical praise and the raving reviews entirely hinge on the gimmicky and "comic" detail of a receipt printer being used instead. Is the hacker community really this under-stimulated?

If you look close enough at anything (and everything) you can reduce it in the same way. The sum of human experience is just meaningless stimulation: if receipt paper is the thing that stimulates us today, so be it, it’s no less valid than watching a rocket zoom into space. What is it to be human if not to enjoy whimsy?

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#133

Post by mwcremer »

doublepg23 wrote: post #111
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...

As a retail worker of 6 yrs I’m raising my eye at this…

no child labor laws where you live?

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#134

Post by amelius »

phphphphp wrote: post #132
daneel_w wrote: post #124

I don't mean to critique the creation, but nobody would bat an eye at an identical solution printing the issues on a normal A4 desktop printer. The lyrical praise and the raving reviews entirely hinge on the gimmicky and "comic" detail of a receipt printer being used instead. Is the hacker community really this under-stimulated?

If you look close enough at anything (and everything) you can reduce it in the same way. The sum of human experience is just meaningless stimulation: if receipt paper is the thing that stimulates us today, so be it, it’s no less valid than watching a rocket zoom into space. What is it to be human if not to enjoy whimsy?

Huh? A rocket sending a telescope into space is much greater news than a receipt printer connected to yet another data source.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#135

Post by KennyBlanken »

cinntaile wrote: post #51
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...

Why do they use thermal printing for receipts? Is it just cheaper because you don't have ink that runs out? Less moving parts so less maintenance?

No ink cartridge/ribbon/toner, the head is "solid state", and they can be very, very fast as the head is a linear array the width of the printable area.

Also, the cynic in me says that thermal paper is exceptionally fragile and this benefits return policies. Thermal receipt paper falls apart readily when wet, bleaches quickly, and of course turns black if exposed to too much heat.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#137

Post by phphphphp »

amelius wrote: post #134
phphphphp wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look close enough at anything (and everything) you can reduce it in the same way. The sum of human experience is just meaningless stimulation: if receipt paper is the thing that stimulates us today, so be it, it’s no less valid than watching a rocket zoom into space. What is it to be human if not to enjoy whimsy?

Huh? A rocket sending a telescope into space is much greater news than a receipt printer connected to yet another data source.

sitting at your computer watching a video in a news article of rocket going into space is not contributing to a satellite launch, it’s no more valid of an activity than enjoying the whimsy of someone using a receipt printer

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#138

Post by gkop »

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.

I know this is a joke, but Jaron Lanier actually proposes machines communicate through human (?) or VR (?) interfaces. Something like that. I spent 15 minutes searching the web and my library but couldn't find it. I read two books of his, it must be in "Dawn of the New Everything" or "You Are Not a Gadget". I'm fuzzy on the idea, but found it interesting enough that I remember it.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#139

Post by chucksmash »

drewzero1 wrote: post #115
cinntaile wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they use thermal printing for receipts? Is it just cheaper because you don't have ink that runs out? Less moving parts so less maintenance?

Pros: faster, quieter, better quality, don't need to know how to load ribbon when it runs out. Cons: fancy paper, fades over time, destroyed by even minor heat. We switched from dot matrix receipts to thermal a few years ago and there were several very vocal complaints about the relative impermanence of a thermal receipt.

Reading the thread for "minor hear"

There was essentially no reasonable distance at which we could store the to-go pizzas from their accompanying thermal receipts where information the receipts contained would be recoverable.

Re: I built a receipt printer for GitHub issues

#140

Post by tzs »

iancmceachern wrote: post #120
iamjackg wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I once worked at a job where one of the owners of the company, when asked to send a pdf copy of a document, would print out the document on the shared office copier/printer, then scan it back in using the same copier/printer and have it email him the pdf. Every single time he ever made a pdf of any file, even hundreds of pages, he would do this way.

On the plus side he didn't have to worry about the documents he send inadvertently containing damaging, incriminating, or embarrassing metadata.
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