Dozens of Solenoids Turn Vintage Typewriter into a Printer
1 min read
Summary
An electric typewriter can make for a wonderful vintage find, particularly if it still works.
However, with the advent of PCs and word processing software, such machines are no longer fit for their original purposes.
That’s where inventor Konstantin Schauwecker comes in, who decided to use a 1980s Silver Reed 2200 CR typewriter to fashion it into a printer, according to a Hackaday report.
Doing so involved using 3D-printed mounts to arrange 50 solenoids into a grid.
These are used to press the typewriter’s keys in the correct sequence to translate a PDF file, sent to the device via USB, into a printed text document.
While the space bar action is a little unreliable, the results are reportedly otherwise pretty good.
