We went on a media tour of Bicol in the last 3 days with Epson and during their presentation, I asked if they still sell the LX-300 dot-matrix printer.
Having bought the LX-300 back in 1997 (my very first printer) and still seeing a lot of these units until now, I wondered if it’s the longest running printer in history.
Epson reps told me they have an even older model that’s still in production. The LX-300 though have gone thru several refresh and been made more compact and it’s the most familiar model of dot-matrix printers I know of. In fact, it’s the only printer I know that’s been around for 15 years and actually become more expensive thru the years (I bought my LX-300 for about Php5k back then and the LX-300+ II now costs over Php8k).
Dot-matrix printers still exists because of a number of inherent advantages over newer and more advanced printing technologies — they’re way cheaper and allows for printing multiple copies at once (by layering carbon paper). As such, they’re pretty useful with printing invoices, receipts and other office documents.
Epson’s been selling tons of them every year and it looks like the dot-matrix printers are still here to stay.
Yep, I still see it being used in offices (specifically the Business Office in my university) which is used for printing receipts and invoices. Fast and economical~…
We have three working units at our unit office in DLSU-D. It’s the most widely used printer in campus.
Nothing beats the experience of hearing its signature sound when it starts to print a document.
yep, this printer model is still good maybe for another 5-10 years. Cheapo ink system, efficient and easy to use. Mostly for receipts, records and text heavy data. Minsan lang may topak yung ribbon pero manageable naman.
we still have this in the office.. the billing dept use this to print sales invoice..
Back in the 80’s I had an Epson MX-70 printer.
Ours is still alive. Just need some dusting & greasing.
Still have those babies at the office. Very dependable. Fell from the table once although a few cracks still works!
old school. yan din po first printer namin sa bahay :)
The AK-47 of printers.
I miss this printer; used to have one at home. Very reliable and low maintenance. Too bad needs have gone up and a dot-matrix is reduced to offices on budget. Ours ended in the warehouse rotting.
yah I remember that printer infact my office still uses that printer.
Hi,
Also in France, you can buy a lot of differents models for dot-matrix printer ;-)
15 here : http://www.ldlc.com/tri/450_p1_tri3_1.html
Jeff
We’re still using this at home. Very cheap in maintenance, refillable ribbon can be bought in NBS for less than 40 pesos (though the original is about 200+).
Loud and Proud! the LX800!! super noisy. hehe.
We still use this model in our workplace… govt hospital… its more efficient than inkjet printers… we use carbon paper if we ran out of ribbon ink…hehehehe… yes carbon paper still exists…
We still have an LX-800 somewhere at home! But I couldn’t find a driver to make it work. :(
The dot-matrix printer is a good printer for business becomes its cheap and it allows to use carbon paper triplicate forms that way its easier to facilitate invoice printing.
I’m a former employee of epson, circa 2001-2004. Yes, this is one of the oldest models still in production.
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I remember when I was a kid, We had an Epson LX-800. Damn, it was so noisy, and it took a lot of time to print a single page.
I still see several offices using this noisy clunkers. Yep, I guess they’re here to stay.
Yup, we still use one in our office but the one assign to me has that thing which keeps the ribbon turning automatically everytime it prints broken, so I have to turn the knob manually everytime I print, FAIL =p