So... I just found a box in my loft that contains an original box of an Amstrad DMP 3160 printer, with manual, 2 connector cables and a fitted printer ribbon.
I am very happy that I bought this back in 2005 and "forgot about it", my recent venture is using the Hisoft-C compiler on the Amstrad CPC 6128 and this will be a great help for printing out the C source-code.
However, my question is: does anyone know if I can re-ink the existing printer ribbon? or if I can get another one or two, from somewhere, anywhere?
I read another thread from 2018 with some links, of which I've followed, but all are out-of-stock / not-available. It's a shame, it's a great condition printer - doesn't look like it was really used - there must be some way of getting an alternative ribbon or re-ink the existing one, surely?
Re-inking is somehow possible but a pain in the ...
I did it with a DMP2000 and some oil based ink. It was then readable again but far away from a good print quality. It might get better with more time investment but in the end, I decided to buy a printer where it's still possible to buy ribbons.
Hmmm might be a mute point :picard2:
Whilst everything looks good, ignoring the dry ribbon, the print head squeaks and moves to the start/left and then a few inches to the right but doesn't attempt to actually print text, it teases and the stops.
I just did a test with:
Print #8,"lots of text written out to test the printer"
Dip switch values are: ds1, on=3. ds2, on=5,6,9
That's just how it was set, looks logical from the manual, apart from the 9.
Well, would you look at that. I switched to a CPC 464 and did the same print #8
And it even looks to have some ink in the ribbon!
(How do I attach a photo from my phone?! Figured it out)