Early Printer were noisy, but they were also slow and generally expensive

Everyone always complains about printers, but were they always such a pain? Yes, yes they were.

These days I don’t actually print all that much. I have a wireless printer connected to our network that I actually use far more often for scanning thing, such as old computer manuals, program listings, etc.

To be honest, for the most part, I don’t find printers to be that much a pain these days. I suppose dealing with ink replacement for ink jet printers is a pain, and wireless setup can be a pain. But if you are doing a straight USB to computer hookup, it is generally pretty easy.

But back in the early days, things were not so easy. Or quiet. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing the brrapp, brrrapp, brrapp of a dot matrix printer slowing working on a printout, consider yourself lucky.

Let’s dig into the different types of printers from back in the day, including dot matrix, daisy wheel, thermal, ink jet and laser.