Warning: My team's weekly sync got derailed by a vintage dot matrix printer

We were all on a video call for our usual check-in when suddenly this loud screeching sound comes from my home office. I forgot I had an old dot matrix printer plugged in from a retro computing project. It decided to start printing a test page right in the middle of discussing quarterly goals. My manager thought it was feedback from my mic and told everyone to check their audio settings. I had to explain over the noise that it was a printer from 1987 spitting out paper. Half the team was laughing, the other half had no idea what a dot matrix printer even was. I spent the next ten minutes trying to unplug it while staying on camera, which looked ridiculous. Now they joke that I run a museum instead of working from home.

3 comments

3 Comments

paige8701mo ago

Heard those printers are still used in some businesses today.

nathan_foster601mo ago

The only place I've seen a dot matrix printer lately was at a dusty old tax office, and they were trying to get rid of it. Most companies moved to basic laser jets or even all digital records like ten years ago. Think about receipts, everywhere uses thermal paper now because it's silent and fast. Those old printers are crazy slow and the noise alone would drive an office nuts. It's pretty much a dead tech outside of a few weird legacy systems. I laugh when people say they're still common.

nelson.finley23d ago

Yeah, that "museum" joke hits close to home. My own collection of old tech is why I have to check my cords before every meeting now. It's a real hazard of being a bit of a packrat.