Add to that a tendency, somehow, towards perfectionism, and tasks often turned me into an angry, sobbing wreck of a human being. And in my most impatient moments, I was a terror. Patience was a skill that I had to learn like reading or writing. Tearing the edges so that little bits of the holes remained was a nightmare. Accidentally tearing the paper itself meant an immediate reprint. Getting the perfect tear was, well… perfect. Wholly satisfying in an almost inappropriate way. I guess you could call the experience something akin to popping bubble wrap.
DOT MATREX PRINTER RIP PAPER HOW TO
I was pretty much our printer’s slave in middle school and part of high school (until we got a swanky bubble jet printer).īut as much fun as it was learning how to load the printer paper just right so that it didn’t go off the rails (dot matrix printer paper jams were the worst), more fun, most definitely, was tearing off the paper’s edges just right as to not improperly tear either the holes or the internal paper itself.
And I was more than willing to oblige, because typing school papers up on the computer and then printing them out beat the hell out hand writing them, so…yeah. I don’t recall there ever being a time when I had to ask for more paper, because it was always there. Like, nowadays, you know how you’re at home and you go to print out directions of Mapquest only to find that you’ve only got a single sheet of printer paper because you totally forgot to get another pack of it when you were at Staples a just few days ago and now you hate life because you really need those directions and have completely forgotten in your rage that you can easily send the directions to your phone, you big dumb dummy? Well, our supply of dot matrix printer paper from ye bygone days of yore was seemingly endless. The box that held the continuous feed of that special paper with the tear-off edges was nearly as big. Which isn’t saying much except that since I was the one who seemed to use the printer the most, I had to figure how the thing worked when my folks weren’t around to help. Learning how to both load paper into and change out the (stupid goddamn) ribbon cartridge for our dot matrix printer was probably my first experience in mechanical/technical know-how. This is a nicer (and newer, relatively) printer than the beast that graced our home. I mean, for several years, outside of the television and the various sounds it emanated, our dot matrix printer was the nosiest damn thing in our house! And that was from me just using it to print out school papers!īut oh, that dot matrix printer. The sound of a dot matrix printer printing has got to be up there with dial-up modems in term of memory-based sounds. Can’t you hear it? * scritch…scriiiiiiiitch…scritch scritch…scriiiiiiitch* The sights, the sounds…yes, the paper, it actually makes a sound.
The stress of pulling the edges off your dot matrix printer paper.
List item #47 from 50 Things only ’80s Kids Can Understand Did I really just type that? Gag me with spoon, seriously.) So throw on your neon windbreaker, lace up your hi-tops, and adjust your Wayfarers, because this DeLorean is taking off! (Ugh. Serving as my inspiration are two lists from Buzzfeed, and I’ll include links to the original list items in each post. Every other week I’ll be covering pop culture tidbits from the 1980s, sharing memories, choking on the ridiculousness, and maybe offering an insight or two into what made the 1980s so great/bad/silly. Welcome the next installment of my year-long look back at the decade that was ruled by big hair and bigger egos.
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