I spent $25 on a bit of nostalgia and will confuse the heck out of some youngsters today.

[-]

Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

So much nostalgia in this entire thread, reading through so many comments that trigger a couple of decades worth of memories. Thanks OP, this is totally awesome!

[-]

ScuzzyUltrawide@reddit

Now you just need a 90s copy of printshop and you can print some sweet 20foot happy birthday banners

[-]

Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

I’m pretty sure I still have a copy of Printshop somewhere.

[-]

NeighborGeek@reddit

Printshop was awesome. It looks like they still make it? Wow...
Now, I just need a modern version of AfterDark...

[-]

tuxedo_jack@reddit

Rose, Flying Toasters, Lawnmower Man, and Module Stacker.

Awwwwwww yiss.

[-]

music2myear@reddit

TBH, I was just a young kid jealous of those flying toasters. I knew I wanted them on my computer. Neighbor had them, the cool posters at the computer store were awesome, etc.

We never got them on our computer, and look how I turned out!

[-]

RickRussellTX@reddit

I’d pay money for a working version of Lunatic Fringe

[-]

Billlhead@reddit

Flying Toasters JS!

https://beavix.github.io/FlyingToastersJS/

[-]

weaver_of_cloth@reddit

You have absolutely made my day, thank you!

[-]

FatherPrax@reddit

I'm going to keep that up on my 3rd monitor all day, because looking at those little flapping wings on those toasters brings me joy. Thank you.

[-]

DaftPump@reddit

Harvard Graphics might be too old, huh? :P

[-]

shitlord_god@reddit

I knew one of the dudes who helped write printshop! I got a free copy from him. Was AMAZING

[-]

MitochondrianHouse@reddit

I have been saying for years, I want to print one out that says "I told you so" so I can walk around with it when I am vindicated.

[-]

andyr354@reddit

https://stalker-gamma-db.com/db/gamma-0.9.5/all-weapons?lang=en

[-]

Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

Love the couple of Panasonic printers I had. Those were so awesome back then.

[-]

My spouse and I were walking through Bisbee, AZ about 40 years ago and from a window overhead we heard the distinct whine of an Oki wide-carriage P3 model (I could tell because of the duration the length of the lines it was printing).

So I fully understand your Epson experience here. And I sympathise.

[-]

jackwmc4@reddit

you have the latest bbs list right?

[-]

AZSystems@reddit

😂 this makes me so happy! Long live dot matrix.

There is always one in the office, every place I've ever worked. The generation unfamiliar always came back to me with same question, what kinda printer and what kinda cable is this!?

Do me a favor and see if any packets lost from USB conversion? I'm guessing not, but still curious.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

total fail, USB adapter couldn't negotiate SPP. Sat in a reboot loop. Whaddya want for $9.99?

[-]

hymie0@reddit

tractor feed paper

Ahh, the number of springies I used to make out of tractor feed paper edges...

[-]

dartdoug@reddit

We had lots of multi-part continuous forms. Once they were printed they went to the decollator (separated each color/paper into separate stacks) and then fed them through the burster that would separate each page and strip off those edges.

Good times.

[-]

saltysomadmin@reddit

You just awoke an ancient memory for me

[-]

TheFluffiestRedditor@reddit

These are good memories

[-]

kagato87@reddit

My high school had a 24 pin (I forget the brand) in the programming classroom. That bugger was insane. Sending a longer program to it (we had to print our code to hand in - it was a long time ago) would cause the table it was on to resonate and shake madly, to the point where most of the class would stop to watch it, hoping for a spectacle.

It handily outperformed anything of comparable size. Especially those LJ4 units we had in the drafting lab (near the pen plotter!). It out performed just about anything really - I think the computer it was attached to might have been it's bottleneck...

[-]

skydiveguy@reddit

I remember getting quizzed on the name of the Centronics port on my A+ exam.

[-]

voxadam@reddit

IEEE 1284? It's been awhile.

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

IEEE 1284 was actually an update to Centronics which allowed for bidirectional data flow. In-between these two in line was the Bitronics interface developed by HP. IEEE 1284 was not actually formalized until 1994.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

This is why the USB adapter failed me. It couldn't talk down to SPP parallel and just went into a reboot loop.

[-]

skydiveguy@reddit

I also needed to know the interrupt request (IRQ) info for troubleshooting.

[-]

JohnGillnitz@reddit

Fuck! I need IRQ 4 and that one is being used by COM1...

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

LPT1 was actually IRQ7 by default.

[-]

mazobob66@reddit

I remember feeling really proud of myself for having created a boot menu that had 2 or 3 options of loading stuff into memory and assigning IRQ's, based on whatever game I was running and what it needed.

[-]

ZiskaHills@reddit

This was me trying to get Wing Commander II working on the family IBM PS/2 386. Took me a week or two to get it all figured out, but I got it working. For me the biggest issue was RAM allocation. 2MB only goes so far.

[-]

gryghin@reddit

Early 90s, a buddy of mine left the service to work as a office computer contractor.

He had a client that over ordered eisa ram cards and he "lent" one to me.

Loading games into a RAM drive was soon satisfying.

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,

And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,

And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort

Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

[-]

ctrocks@reddit

You forgot the base I/O port of 0x278 for LPT1 and for LPT2 0x0378.

Back before the days of plug and pray juggling those was always fun!

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

Here is a comprehensive list of all of them, from back when you needed such a guide handy to reference more than you ever admitted to.

[-]

ctrocks@reddit

I remember going into debug and looking at memory address c000 to look at the video bios to figure out which lousy graphics were installed on the motherboard!

I also remember using debug to remove the manual lookups for the Sierra Online games!

[-]

xander255@reddit

Or a game controller port. 🤣

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

Many sound cards even back then came with the 15 pin port already on them, so that wasn't an issue too often.

[-]

skydiveguy@reddit

gif

AHHHHH!!!!

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

Almost forgot: If LPT2 precludes IRQ5, you can always hope your sound card supports IRQ10 or 11 which were less commonly used.

[-]

voxadam@reddit

Thanks, now I'm having flashbacks.

[-]

skydiveguy@reddit

What's worse is I never had to use that knowledge ever and its still taking up space in my brain.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

“Yet” You’ve never had to use that knowledge yet.

[-]

trail-g62Bim@reddit

I am thankful to have gotten into computers right as dealing IRQs stopped being a thing. It always sounded like a pain.

[-]

w0lrah@reddit

I remember actually having to set jumpers on the back of my modem in the early '90s and then adjust the software to match, but by the time I took the A+ cert exam in the early '00s I hadn't thought about IRQ/Port nonsense in years and passing that test was literally the last time in my life I had to deal with that.

[-]

mazobob66@reddit

Remember when hard drive sizes were hard-coded into the BIOS, and you had to pick one that was closest to the parameters of your hard drive?

[-]

fahque@reddit

Damn, I thought I was old and I never heard of that.

[-]

mazobob66@reddit

Here are some example sizes depending on the BIOS manufacturer

https://aeb.win.tue.nl/linux/hdtypes/hdtypes-3.html

[-]

Scurro@reddit

Kind of why many certs are overrated.

[-]

Noticeably-F-A-T-@reddit

Time to head to the nearest liquor store and get a 40 of something to run "disk cleanup".

[-]

CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit

I needed to know DIP switch settings for emulation

[-]

gadget850@reddit

I worked for the company that bought out Centronics.

[-]

skydiveguy@reddit

my old coworker worked for "Macromedia" and was there when Adobe bought them out.

[-]

UMustBeNooHere@reddit

gif

Recently?

[-]

department_g33k@reddit

OK, I kid you not last night I saw a dot matrix printer on a TV show, and thought how cool it'd be to do just what you did. Deja Vu!

[-]

zaphod777@reddit

I can't say that I have ever heard the words "dot matrix printer" and "joy" uttered in the same sentence.

Other than when you've resolved whatever alignment issue you were having or when you finally got rid of the thing.

[-]

edmazing@reddit

It was called green bar? I know it was like programming and accounting paper so there was a visual difference between lines.

[-]

yer_muther@reddit

I have a box of paper. No printer though.

[-]

jasondbk@reddit

SAME!

I have a bunch of unused punch cards and no card punch.

[-]

harbengerprime@reddit

I can hear this post

[-]

Wolfram_And_Hart@reddit

A lot of libraries still use them. We still repair them.

[-]

passiontiger74@reddit

Where in the world are you? I have a box of green line tractor feed.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

Alas, not Canada. I'm outside of Boston. Thanks for the offer though. People are selling it 100 sheets at a time on ebay for silly money.

[-]

Jarl_Korr@reddit

I found an old one in the mechanics parts rooma while ago, dusted it off and got it running for fun. First time I had ever seen one before.

[-]

fahque@reddit

We were using greenbar up to 15 years ago. It excited to see someone still using it and not so excited when I saw the unix system running it since I'm a windows guy.

[-]

stromm@reddit

Now find Printmaster and Print Shop and make awesome multipage banners!

[-]

Killertigger@reddit

I would absolutely love to have one of those. And a copy of Printshop. And Maybe American Greetings Cardshop. That printer sound is the song of my misspent youth. .

[-]

gadget850@reddit

Here ya go:

https://www.broderbund.com/

[-]

twitch1982@reddit

I'm calling Shenanigans. How is Mavis Beacon 5 years younger looking than she was in 1987?

[-]

InevitableOk5017@reddit

Heck we just got rid of one at our office last year.

[-]

mustang__1@reddit

We ran dotmatrix OxiData's up until the early part of COVID. Thank god I don't have to hear the damn things anymore. Unfortunately, our SATO printer is just as loud - has been since the day we got it.

[-]

ArgumentSpiritual@reddit

I work in industrial maintenance. When i was changing jobs in 2023, i applied to a place that ground coffee for places like Dunkin. They used almost entirely dot matrix tractor fed printers for everything

[-]

ubermonkey@reddit

I can HEAR this post.

[-]

CeC-P@reddit

Fire that sucker up. We want to hear the beautiful line printer sounds.
Btw I learned to type on a typewriter so y'all aint old lol.

[-]

Zaphod1620@reddit

I called our business continuity alert system a "glorified speed dial" on a conference call. No one under 40 understood what I meant.

[-]

David511us@reddit

Did you get the thing to print with Windows 11? I have two ancient daisywheel typewriters with Centronics interfaces (one's a Royal, and I forget the other one), and I also got the USB adapter, but could not get the thing to work, using every print driver I could find (including generic lineprinter ones). I was trying to get it to work to fill out a multi-part form at the time.

I do still also still have a KX-P1092i (bought new) on a shelf in a closet...maybe I'll have to drag that out and see what it does. Damn I'm old.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

Actually, no. The USB adapter kept disappearing and reappearing and the printer kept going offline, online and resetting the print head. I am going to dust off a Windows 7 laptop and see if it does the same thing. If all else fails I can probably dig up an old JetDirect.

[-]

David511us@reddit

Good luck! I think I tried with a Win7 laptop too, with same results. I actually still have an ancient laptop running XP too, but tbh I can't remember if I tried that one. One day I will have to try again.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

I think this is an electrical incompatibility with the parallel port since it has a driver but keeps resetting the USB side. Might even be defective.

[-]

PaleSignature4776@reddit

You can find new okis with usb, usually a 1k or more….some industries still use them

[-]

freethought-60@reddit

I still have an old (Working) "Mannesmann Tally MT 140" lying around that I got for my own use (factory new) in the late 80s so I understand the nostalgia.

[-]

KingOfTheTrailer@reddit

Mannesmann Tally

Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

I had a daisy wheel printer in college. Profs thought I was handing in perfect typewritten work. I actually sold it to a journalism student and she was deeply saddened years later when she couldn’t get ribbons for it any more.

[-]

TaxHazyShade@reddit

Same, my professors would complain loudly about dot-matrix printers being hard to read, and not having "true descenders" on letters p, q, g, etc. I think my daisy-wheel was an JUKI or OKIDATA.

[-]

freethought-60@reddit

Probably off topic, but back in the day when I bought my first (and expensive) PC with a classic "Intel 8088" CPU on board, you can imagine my expression when a "Mannesmann Tally MT 180" mounted a "10 Mhz 8086" CPU manufactured by NEC and even the predisposition for a matching "8087 math coprocessor". Stuff you wouldn't believe for a "matrix dot printer" of that era.

[-]

ConfidentCobbler23@reddit

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

[-]

mortsdeer@reddit

This line always evokes the voice of Sir Alex for me. Thanks!

[-]

gadget850@reddit

I was with GENICOM when they bought Tally.

[-]

Hank_Scorpio74@reddit

Meanwhile Epson is still cranking out the DFX series.

[-]

Atticus_of_Finch@reddit

My first job in IT was working nightshift printing reports to a 5 different TI-880 printers and 2 Genicom 4440XTs. The Genicoms could do 600 lines per minute (I think) and I would work all night long printing and bursting the reports.

I ended up writing some batch files on our VMS system to automatically print those in the end-user areas that needed them after we had a downsizing and I had to move to dayshift.

[-]

762mm_Labradors@reddit

Just bought an Epson dot matrix printer a few weeks ago for one of the business I support. We also acquired another company a few years ago that had 7 dot matrix printers in active use.

[-]

johnnysoj@reddit

Wow! I wonder if they still make ribbons for that.

[-]

Nuronus@reddit

I hope you got a copy of Print Shop.

[-]

alraffa218@reddit

#Nostalgia. I still see some dot matrix at airports.

My Alarm to wake up is the dial-up modem sound. I can relate.

[-]

KAugsburger@reddit

The only scenarios I have seen dot matrix printers for in the last ~15 years is for orgs that still need to use carbon paper and printing labels in some warehouses. I have only seen airlines using thermal printers for printing boarding passes and luggage tags in recent years.

[-]

DrStalker@reddit

When I was a kid Dad would bring home stacks of used A3 paper from a tractor feed dot-matrix, still all attached together, from reports that misprinted or ended up not being needed. One sided would have a bunch of printing and lined background, the other side was blank and perfect for drawing on.

Terrible data security, but no-one cared about that in the 1900s.

[-]

trekologer@reddit

1900s

Don't. Don't do that.

[-]

Other-Illustrator531@reddit

I may as well have been born in 1908 after hearing it phrased this way! Lol

[-]

l0st1nP4r4d1ce@reddit

Terrible data security, but no-one cared about that in the 1900s.

Finally, proof that aliens created computers! ;)

[-]

dj_1973@reddit

I bought my kid a box of it in 2014 or so, when he was like 4. He wanted to draw big whales and regular paper was too small.

[-]

Shoddy_Abalone8957@reddit

Same! Dad would bring home the printed code when they found a bug and didn’t need the hard copy of that version anymore. And yes, they would print the code and store a hard copy as backup.

[-]

Infninfn@reddit

I can't say I'd be happy to hear the racket again. But I do miss tearing off those holey side tracks from the paper.

[-]

WRX_RAWR@reddit

A client finally got rid of their dot matrix printers last year, I am finally free!

[-]

Just_Steve_IT@reddit

Oh man...
Reminds me of the XT we had with Print Shop installed on it. We could use the tractor feed paper to make banners for parties on that. Just had to be careful not to tear the pages apart! The last dot matrix I used would've been at CIBC in the early 2000's.

[-]

buzzsawcode@reddit

If anyone has a site for tractor feed thermal paper let me know - I have an old Okidata that can apparently use it that I'd like to get back into service.

Somewhere I have an older wide carriage printer last used in ~2000 that I need to clean up and put into service or donate to someone who will use it.

[-]

Ok-Shower6174@reddit

That sound is burned into my brain. It's not just a printer; it's a 9-pin mechanical orchestra. If you want to maximize the confusion for the younger staff, set it up to print out the real-time firewall reject logs right next to the water cooler. The erratic, aggressive screeching of a Panasonic KXP hitting tractor-feed paper at 150 characters per second is the exact kind of high-severity ambient noise the modern open office environment is missing.

[-]

natefrogg1@reddit

The previous owner of our company absolutely loved that sound, “you hear that Nate, that’s the sound of money!” With a huge smile on his face as the orders kept grinding out of the printer

[-]

natefrogg1@reddit

We have an order processing manager that insists on using a similar epson dot matrix printer, they work pretty reliably and have built in usb or Ethernet so I’m just happy for no dongle need, that paper keeps getting more and more expensive though

[-]

Kraeftluder@reddit

Matrix printers are really common in airports in the US. Or were last time I flew out of SLC in 2024. That sound...

[-]

notn@reddit

the joy of figuring out the exact paper path that will not jam was one of my most common tickets.

good times.

[-]

RightPassage@reddit

Obligatory Printer Jam

[-]

EduRJBR@reddit

Put it on a small table or whatever with a good wiggling potential.

[-]

Sunsparc@reddit

"I'm going to ~~type~~ print every word I know!"

"Rectangle!"

"America!"

"Megaphone!"

"Monday!"

"Butthole"

[-]

bionic80@reddit

Heathen continuing to support the great Satan (printing).
You should be forced to support windows ME computer science labs in college hell for the rest of existence.

[-]

edaddyo@reddit

I did mid-range support in the late 90s. I would have to print out literally BOXES of financial reports, then hand-trolley them to the Finance department where no doubt they were promptly ignored.

[-]

Phreakiture@reddit

I had that printer! It cost me $400 in 1986. The NLQ mode on it was surprisingly sharp (I think about 160 DPI), but, of course, printed in what today would be called Courier 12. I used it with a Commodore 128 and used GEOS for most of my word processing. It had a driver called "Epson RED" that was compatible with the Panasonic, and would print 120 DPI.

The manuals in those days were very complete . . . inclinding all the escape codes to get it to do stuff.

[-]

Kodiak01@reddit

On a whim, just searched on Fleabay and found a Oki Microline 92 with the accessories still factory sealed and even a "Play & Play" IBM-PC kit which talks about how it needs a different PROM installed for it to work with that computer.

[-]

NastyKnate@reddit

That was pretty much my first printer, but ours was colour. took two different ribbons. amazing printer with cheap refills well in to the 2000s.

Get some print shop deluxe and print a 20 page long banner for a birthday party.

[-]

JohnGillnitz@reddit

We had a massive line printer connect to a VAX back in the mid-90s. It would print out thick report from a huge box that would turn into a stack. We would take that stack, cut off the feed edges, punch holes in it, put it in a binder, then file that binder along with hundreds of others. No one ever looked at those binders and I never understood why we did it.
Eventually we moved onto RS/6000 running an Oracle client/server system that no longer needed them. The company moved and all the binders were tossed into shred bins.

[-]

Maro1947@reddit

Up until fairly recently the good old OKI was the printer of choice for dockets for dispatch

Always had a spa4in the boot of my car

[-]

gadget850@reddit

Line printers are even more fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6oUGv3M5ec

[-]

IwishIhadntKilledHim@reddit

I'm gonna type every word I know! Rectangle

[-]

leehofook@reddit

Flying toasters for everyone!

[-]

franky694@reddit

We currently support a fleet of dot matrix printers at 5 different sites. The waste management industry still runs on these for printing manifests and labels lol.

[-]

maximumtesticle@reddit

This is one of those sounds that is annoying as hell, but for some reason it brings me peace. Maybe it reminds me of a simpler time of being at home and printing out long banners for birthday parties.

Also, tearing off the holed edges of that paper...oh...my...fucking...god. So, satisfying.

[-]

mortsdeer@reddit

It was the film peel of our youth.

[-]

sheravi@reddit

I remember my father printing off reports that were dozens of pages and our dot matrix printer just going and going. You could always tell when the head got to a section of bold font because the sound would change for a couple seconds, then go back to normal.

[-]

gadget850@reddit

Dot matrix printers paid off my mortgage.

[-]

RevLoveJoy@reddit

I can hear this post.

[-]

mak10z@reddit

Oh Okidata Microline 192.. you were the best printer 1985 had to offer... I spent many a day drawing in newsroom for the C64 and printing it out my newspapers on you

[-]

DeepPowStashes@reddit

I work in the old Iomega offices. Only remnant I can find. (Sorry about dumb ig words on photo couldn’t find original)

https://i.imgur.com/gA95Nfq.jpeg

[-]

TwinkleTwinkie@reddit

I hope you demand that it be added to the print server or universal print.

[-]

No-Help6469@reddit

the real flex would be printing out a few trouble tickets on it and leaving them on peoples desks. no context, just greenbar

[-]

SynergizeTheNeedful@reddit

The office will surely appreciate the noise of the ancestors

[-]

SenTedStevens@reddit

Oh, man. That brings back memories. This was my first printer paired with a Macintosh SE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5kG3E5Jolg

[-]

_haha_oh_wow_@reddit

I can hear this post...

[-]

AmiDeplorabilis@reddit

Now everyone can FEEL the joy of listening to an impact printer print a page in 1 minute.

[-]

ender-_@reddit

I found the old Epson LX-400 my father bought in the early 90's in the basement last week. Should test if it still works :)

[-]

bythepowerofboobs@reddit

We still need to support Oki dotmatrix printers. (we actually just installed a new one last week) Believe it or not, the government still requires three part forms for exporting product to certain countries. IT's absolutely ridicilious.

[-]

MrChicken_69@reddit

I still have three of them. My original Tandy printer circa 1985 - as I recall, one of the pins doesn't fire. An Epson(?). And my jewel... a 132 column C.Itoh still in the box. (it was the backup for the log printer at a telco CO) I do miss that sound. The only place I know still using them (OKI's) is an auto shop - they're still king for multi-part forms.

[-]

YOLOSwag_McFartnut@reddit

I have a KX-P1150 sitting under my desk that I print to every now and then just to hear her sing.

[-]

nhaines@reddit

I was literally just wishing I still had mine. I would type in printer codes to change the font sometimes in MS-DOS editor if I was just making a quick text file to print.

[-]

pmandryk@reddit

Better spring for the sound proof enclosure which wasn't so sound proof.

For the youngsters, think a breadbox but with baffles. Then make it 10x as large.

Ok. A breadbox is a... nevermind.

[-]

3percentinvisible@reddit

"Zzzzzzzzzz

Zzzzzzzzz ZZZ ZZZZ

Zz Zz a zzz zzz

Riiiiip."

Now to find a daisywheel.....

[-]

wwbubba0069@reddit

have a big-ol line printer in accounting, it cooks along at 1000 lines/min. Another on our truck scale that is more like 10 letters/min lol.

[-]

Candid_Ad5642@reddit

As long as you don't bring it to an office I work in, by all means, share the joy

There was a reason you could get sound proof-ish cabinets for these

[-]

_l33ter_@reddit

I heard the song of the dot-matrix again --> record it! :)

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8I6qt_Z0Cg

[-]

_l33ter_@reddit

yeah I know that - but I wan't YOURS not some 12y old yt video :D

[-]

Visible_Witness_884@reddit

That's great fun.

I held an IT support challenge at the Friday bar at my old job where I brought in a late 90s Pentium 1 machine with Win98 and had young people there try to solve issues and get it booting again and playing a couple of games.

[-]

Gadgetman_1@reddit

I have an OKI 320 with tractor feed and an almost full box of paper for it. Can't beat a dot-matrix with tractor feed when you need to print out a long listing.

They're also used for 'offline' logs in many security systems. Then they're placed in a locked cabinet or room, with a serial link to the security system. Anything happen and it prints a line.

These printers will print if they even get just a character or two over he link. No waiting for a whole page.

A story I heard once was from the mainframe days somewhere. When the backup ran properly, it would print only a few lines to the log. When it failed, it dumped A LOT of text to the printer. The admin would tie a string to the sheet, through a small pulley and to the phone in the console room. When he woke up in the morning he would dial the number for that phone. If it rang through, the backup was OK and he could enjoy his breakfast. If the phone was off the hook, something had failed, and he had to hurry to the office.

[-]

SweetsMurphy@reddit

Ingenious

[-]

Walbabyesser@reddit

Don‘t wait for the cheering office crowd 😄

[-]

Vesalii@reddit

I used to have a Diconix 150 as a kid to play with. You could put D cells in the drum and you'd have a portable printer. It was pretty sweet.

[-]

graph_worlok@reddit

Immutable offline read-only logs asks the auditor? tick

[-]

Binky390@reddit

I worked for a large investment firm that used one of these for daily communication for years until they created a more modern system. The older employees insisted that the complex manager keep it even after they moved to the modern system. I was responsible for tearing and distributing each one every morning as part of my operations role. The sound would trigger a trauma response lol.

[-]

jakedata@reddit (OP)

I set up a listener that caught the print jobs as they came in on the frame relay line from the mainframe. They went into a database first and then got dumped to the printer anyway because dems da rules. It was the very start of an IT revolution at the brokerage.

[-]

Binky390@reddit

I was in operations sand had no control over it. This was also early 2000s and the firm had just rolled out the new system not long before I started that gave sales assistants more control so they didn’t have to rely on operations and the other old systems. They all just wanted them out of habit.

It actually finally died once. Hardware failure. My complex manager let me send an email that said we don’t know when it will be fixed or if it will be at all and they all complained so they had it fixed. I was furious.