[HN Gopher] The Print Shop Club: Create Apple II Print Shop Prin...
___________________________________________________________________
The Print Shop Club: Create Apple II Print Shop Printouts in the
Browser
Author : empressplay
Score : 128 points
Date : 2021-07-16 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theprintshop.club)
(TXT) w3m dump (theprintshop.club)
| armagon wrote:
| Oh, this brings back memories.
|
| The one advantage tractor-feed paper still has is in printing
| banners!
| tyingq wrote:
| I still see tractor feed paper in a few businesses, usually
| where they need paper with multiple carbon copies...since
| tractor feed also usually means impact dot matrix.
|
| I still see these in some older mom-and-pop auto parts stores,
| for example.
| reaperducer wrote:
| One other advantage: High-speed printing.
|
| In the early 90's I worked at a chemical company in a
| department that sometimes printed labels for sample-size drums
| of chemicals. We had an enormous tractor-feed laser printer
| that printed on giant drum-sized stickers. I was told that
| tractor feed was used because of the speed at which the labels
| were printed. If you remember the 90's, mechanical handling of
| individual sheets of paper wasn't very good. Piles of labels
| was worse.
|
| I have no idea what the tech stack was behind the scenes, but I
| did each label run with a green screen Wang terminal.
|
| (Fun fact: The administration offices were on one side of a
| very large, steeply-sloped, man-made hill, and the lab was on
| the other side. If bad things happened, the sales and
| administration staff was safe.)
| user3939382 wrote:
| This type of paper and dot matrix printers are still in use in
| some commercial and industrial settings, like accounting
| departments or warehouses where they need printers going 24/7.
| From what I gather this is the most reliable setup in those
| scenarios.
| tclancy wrote:
| Man, every birthday party ever thanks to C64!
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I credit my developing an eye for identifying typefaces to my use
| of The Print Shop at my public library when I was in elementary
| school. I don't know that I was aware of the idea of typefaces
| before that.
|
| My junior high had signs, printed in The Print Shop, announcing
| administrative minutiae and offering "pep talk" slogans. I'd
| scratch down the particular combination of typeface, border, and
| clip art they used then print subtly different replacement signs
| I'd hang over the originals. It went on for awhile before I got
| caught sticking one up. (I was particularly pleased with
| replacing "All lockers are school property and may be searched at
| any time" with "All thoughts are school property and may be
| controlled at any time".)
|
| As an aside: The Print Shop Companion on Apple II has a hidden
| "driver" game on the B-side. You press ESC then CTRL-SHIFT-6 to
| get to the game. That was one of the first Easter eggs I'd ever
| seen and I remember having a feeling of wonderment at the idea
| that secrets could be hidden in software.
| ukyrgf wrote:
| I did the same! Although mine was in the days of Photoshop, I
| just had to mimic it perfectly. It took me making one that said
| "kill whitey!" before they started asking kids who was doing it
| and I got ratted out. When I explained it was a quote from
| Black Sheep the principal kinda laughed and said "yeah.. I
| know... please stop?"
| airstrike wrote:
| I have a similar recollection but on a different app for
| Windows 95(?) which I'll never recall the name...
| slacktide wrote:
| Excel 97 had a rudimentary flight simulator game as an easter
| egg.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Super cool. How is that PDF gateway implemented?
| brassattax wrote:
| Looks like their emulator MicroM8 has built in support for
| emulating an Epson MX-80 printer and saving the output to PDF,
| as well as a virtual modem.
| https://paleotronic.com/software/microm8/help/peripherals/
|
| That's excellent!
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Thanks. I guess you went the smarter route looking for a
| solution :)
| brassattax wrote:
| I was curious myself... that's beyond what I would expect
| in an emulator
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Answering my own question (partially): some Apple II emulators
| seem to have that functionality built-in, for instance
| VirtualII that has "Epson FX-80 and Imagewriter II emulation".
| Now I wonder what emulator they are using with WASM. They are
| essentially loading a file called "cyanide.wasm" but I could
| not find an emulator with that name.
| adambb wrote:
| Looks like they mention it in the blog post
|
| https://paleotronic.com/2021/07/13/introducing-the-print-
| sho...
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| The program that destroyed dot matrix printer ribbons.
|
| You could hear it a mile away in our first year computer lab as a
| poor Epson FX-80 screamed it's "head" off.
|
| We always had a stack of confiscated floppies of pirated
| versions.
| jdofaz wrote:
| I loved that rainbow printing screen as a kid
| Thoreandan wrote:
| I know, right? _THINKING_ was the most curious thing for 5th
| grade me. _THINKING_ _PRINTING_ _THINKING_ _PRINTING_
| jdofaz wrote:
| I forgot it used to pause and think :D
| wiredfool wrote:
| That looks soooo weird.
|
| I've never seen it in color before.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Yep I was expecting green on dark green.
| DJBunnies wrote:
| I can hear the dot matrix printer whirring away at my banner.
| Serious nostalgia.
| erickhill wrote:
| Thank you so much for doing this. So many of my classrooms were
| covered in printouts from this legendary program. It's amazing
| how ubiquitous its printouts were especially in my elementary
| school days.
|
| That really gave me a massive blast from the past.
|
| I really appreciate the attention to detail to even making the
| CRT-looking text have some color distortion.
|
| A+
| throwmamatrain wrote:
| This is the sound you would hear when you press print:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5kG3E5Jolg
| chadlavi wrote:
| Wish you could use an iOS device's software keyboard for this!
| savrajsingh wrote:
| This was an outstanding piece of software. I'm stuck on the
| printing page though -- maybe we crashed it.
| empressplay wrote:
| On some browsers if you click away it will suspend WebAssembly
| execution, if you click back it should continue...
| telesilla wrote:
| I went back in time and heard this in my mind while I was waiting
| for the print job to complete. Thanks, person who made this.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJYNtI2ul4
| dekhn wrote:
| Print Shop changed my life in several ways. First, it introduced
| me to fonts at a time when the only fonts available were fixed-
| width raster fonts. I have loved fonts since then, although
| pretty much between 1989 to 2001 I stuck with fixed-width fonts
| for performance and compatibility reasons (linux had terrible
| font support at the time). I later found out about the font wars
| (adobe/microsoft/apple) and how the end result was
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType
|
| Second, it made me learn bit math so I could render fonts
| onscreen in high res. That played a huge role in me becoming a
| better programming (scripter-> coder).
| spoonjim wrote:
| Just the word "Print Shop" is nostalgic to the point of physical
| pain. I used to sneak into the school computer lab at lunch or
| recess and print out huge numbers of banners which I then covered
| my room with. Dot matrix 4 Lyfe.
| munificent wrote:
| _> nostalgic to the point of physical pain._
|
| Perfect description of what I'm feeling right now. It's like
| some long-dead part of my childhood briefly lurched into life
| for a moment reopening the wounds of grief at the lost time.
| uxp100 wrote:
| Anyone have a recommendation for label making software for the
| Apple ii? My ImageWriter is the only printer I own and I was
| wanting to run a batch of home brew labels, just like name date
| og/fg sort of thing.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| If you're not looking for fancy typefaces I'd use Appleworks.
| The database function has label capability if memory serves.
| rticesterp wrote:
| Very cool! I made just about all of my birthday cards in early
| elementary school on the Mac Plus Print Shop. How long do you
| plan on having the site up?
| __david__ wrote:
| It's weird to think there was a time when practically everyone
| had dot matrix printers and custom banners adorned every
| gathering...
| OriPekelman wrote:
| omg Koalapad. I totally forgot about that. And the very huge
| banners. and running out of ink after printing just one.
| acheron wrote:
| I did so much with Print Shop in MS-DOS. The Apple II version
| looks a bit different, though part of that could also be that I
| always had Print Shop Companion as well; I can't remember what
| was added with that.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| This is _fantastic_. I 'll never forget that feeling of
| excitement as my carefully crafted card started getting printed
| on my grandpa's dot matrix printer...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-16 23:01 UTC)