Re: Imagewriter I ribbon

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

"Michael J. Mahon" (mjmahon@aol.com) writes:


>> The good thing about never used ribbons is that the ribbon itself
>> has seen no use.  That seems a bigger issue than a dried out ribbon.
> 
> Considering that most black ribbons could be re-inked several times
> before the ribbon fabric gave out, I wouldn't worry about ribbon use.
> 
> Any ribbon that moves more or less smoothly and tranfers ink to paper
> is a good ribbon.  ;-)
> 
When I was using dot-matrix printers, right up till four years ago,
I never printed so much that I gave much thought to buying a ribbon
when I needed one.  On the other hand, there is a tendency to miss
that it is time to reink or get a new ribbon.  The minute you put
a new one in, you realize you should have replaced it before.  I
was looking at some old printouts this week, and they would have
benefitted from a new ribbon.

So I never got a ribbon to the point where I discovered how many
times a ribbon could be reused.  I was actually lucky, because
I found some Imagewriter ribbons for about a dollar each at
a garage sale some years before I gave moved on, and then found
a bunch of unused ribbons in a pile of computer stuff waiting
for the garbage trucks.  When something's plentiful, one can
be wasteful.

On the other hand, I seem to recall that I did have to oil some of
those ribbons, because even sealed they weren't as fresh as they
could have been.

I know I still have the ribbons around, even after I used them,
because at that point I was anticipating reusing them.

It's interesting how printing has changed.  Back then we wanted them
for text, and now it seems much of what people print is graphic (and ink)
intensive.

  Michael