I could never claim to hate thermal typewriters since I don't own any, nor can I recall having ever used one.

I can't believe after all those years of using a fax machine that I don't remember anything about them: If thermal typewriters require fax paper to use, which I seem to recall comes in rolls, how is it used with one of these machines? I can't even remember if you can you write on fax paper as you would normal paper? And surely thermal fax paper must be disappearing? My last fax machine used regular paper (and an ink cartridge of some kind).


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Never seen one.  Never even heard of them!  But an interesting idea.  My big question would be; does the typing fade to illegible as did the faxes themselves?

beak wrote:

My big question would be; does the typing fade to illegible as did the faxes themselves?

That's an excellent point. So many of my receipts that were printed on thermal paper have over many years faded to the point that they can no longer be read.

beak wrote:

… rolls of paper can be very handy in a typewriter ...

I get that, it was the standard set-up for telegram services, but I'm curious about how the OP uses fax rolls with an electronic typewriter. Are letter-length sheets pre-cut from those rolls, or has he set up some sort of a mounting bracket to hold the roll behind the machine?

Uwe wrote:

... I'm curious about how the OP uses fax rolls with an electronic typewriter. Are letter-length sheets pre-cut from those rolls, or has he set up some sort of a mounting bracket to hold the roll behind the machine?

I set the typewriter on a folding TV table. I put the fax roll on a 1/2" dowel, which sits where the legs cross forming an X. Then I just feed the paper from under the table into the typewriter.

I actually bought some little wooden ampersands at a craft store which I will adjust to fit the dowel so I can set the roll on top of a desk or non-folding table.

Joe Van Cleave has made a few different mounts to use when he takes his thermal typers out to coffee shops:



 

beak wrote:

My big question would be; does the typing fade to illegible as did the faxes themselves?

Yes, that's simply the nature of thermal paper, regardless of the device used to print.

My biggest issue is the lifetime of the print head.  I was tasked with designing a portable barcode printer back in the early '90s, about the same time as these thermal typewriters were on the market.  We researched those thermal print heads and, IIRC, they were only good for 100k to 250k characters before burning out.  That's about 20k -50k words on a typewriter, or roughly 100 - 250 single-spaced pages.  Who knows how much of that lifetime was used up by the previous owner(s)!  In the end, we decided to use inkjet cartridges with integrated print heads for our product instead of thermal (Canon Bubblejet - it was new technology at the time).  Run out of ink, get a new cartridge - and with it, a brand new print head.  I'm fairly sure the limited lifetime of the print head is one reason why thermal typewriters didn't last long on the market...