24k #4 -- Impact
Today’s entry in our 24k for 24 series is the Apple ImageWriter II dot matrix printer. It … actually, I promise you I had no idea what it had or how it worked until Google told me it had 24k of buffer RAM in some models (expandable to that in an earlier model).
The ImageWriter is our pick today because it was advertised as having 24k buffer memory. Its laser cousins just had memory. Not PostScript memory or buffer memory.
Buffer is just a word. Like ‘homestyle’.
I remember the ImageWriter II. It was strange and beautiful in a way that reminds me of no other dot matrix. Typewriters? Sure, they had been the province of the industrial designer for decades. Laser printers? Not wholly unattractive. Apple’s original LaserWriter from 1985 had a cheerful and clunky look. Ink jet? The HP DeskJet of 1988 was hands-down handsome.
The ImageWriter II was beautiful mostly because Apple paid for it to be beautiful. Specifically, Apple paid Frog Design for it to be beautiful. It may have been about as close as the world ever got to a luxury dot matrix printer. Not overstated, but certainly not quiet luxury. What strikes me about the design (sorry, last dot-matrix pun) is that the ImageWriter II is said to have been based on the ImageWriter I, which was based on the original Apple Dot Matrix Printer, itself a re-badged C.Itoh 8510. I have no confidence that the 8510 is even the bottom of that stack of turtles. The trick of the 8510 is that it looks like a genuine C.Itoh printer when it wears that sticker. It looks like an original DEC LA-50 when it says that on the front. It looks like an authentic Apple Dot Matrix Printer when it wears a piece of striped fruit on the front. Same printer, same case, same packing foam. It seems to match every contemporary computer it sits next to. On the other hand, the ImageWriter II is pure Apple. Well, mostly Apple and maybe 10% a Braun roast beef slicer or something.
So it is with our 24k machines. We may find hundreds of them, or maybe just the 24 we'll talk about this year, but there was less real diversity than you might expect. In fact, the printer may turn out to be surprisingly similar to some of the computers it was attached to. I don't know anything yet about what processor it had or what software it ran, but the DEC manual for the LA-50 variant claimed an 8085 processor ran the printer. That's the same processor and memory size as the Tandy TRS-80 Model 102 we featured earlier in this series. The 102 was a Tandy badge on a Kyocera Kyotronic 85 – essentially the same as the NEC PC-8201 and the Olivetti M10 and the ... wait a minute! The C.Itoh 8510 printer is the same printer as the NEC PC-8203 – the companion printer to the PC-8201. Here's an example, pictured together with a box of Apple Imagewriter/C.Itoh 85xx ribbons. This printer looks like a slightly older design than the 8510. Perhaps it's the original!
This post pairs well with "You're Not Alone" / "Hard Attack" / MX-80 Sound, 1977.