I can’t imagine why anyone would ever have filmed this. Especially in the pre-smart phone era. Upvotes for whoever can find some footage!

Someone must still have one of those printers and a hookup, right? Somewhere?

I'd actually would like to see this too

Closest I could get

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=247675

I have a serial kit, and since Zito stopped working on his, I've been playing with a new board design. (Allows Ticket outputs, utilizes USB for output instead of an actual parallel or RS232 connection.. Maybe even an ether net connection!)

Likely not for sale, cuz of the SMALL interest and higher cost.

But also not sure if what you're asking.. You want just a video of a printer printing anything? (Those exist on YouTube already..) or to see what the output looks like?

I’d be interested to see what the output looks like

Ah! Okay. Gimme a little bit - a week or so, and I can capture output from my TZ and post it.

Note that the printouts are only the bookkeeping information - No live stats (current High Scores, current ball in play, etc) are given in the readouts.

In fact, for serial connections, the serial data transfer takes so much CPU resources that even with the 'auto' printout set to enable, the game will not print out anything while a game is in session.

Sorry for the delay. I had forgotten about this until I was messing in my basement today.
I attached a PDF file. This is the printout using "P.8 ALL DATA" option. It's the same as printing out P1 - P7, except with one difference - if you print out just P.1, you get an additional line stating when the Time & Date was last changed.

(Can't upload a PDF because Pinside does not allow TXT files. (Strangely..) Also, it's a bug that it starts on 'Page 4'. If you print out the sections manually, they start at the proper number (1).

TZ_Print.pdf

Very interesting stuff, Coyote! Quick question: Line 6 of the Total Earnings is 92,945. Does this number mean that the game DOES have a universal counter like the way the EMs had with their physical game counters? Or does it just mean that you've never accidentally cleared your bookkeeping stuff due to power outage when the batteries were actually dead or you forgot to turn your game on when changing the batteries?

If you just want to see the output you can run it in pinmame, there it will export the output to a file.

This is most definitely a bug - likely in 9.4H of TZ and my coin door configuration. You'll notice that my recent earnings are $150.30 - my game has the following setup:
Left - $.05 (nickles)
Center - $.10
Right - $.25
4th - $1.00

I have a single-slot coin door, which has an electronic coin mech in it. It accepts all coins, including $.50 pieces. DBA accepts $1 - $20s, wired to 4th slot.
Anyways - 1 credit is 10 units, 1 unit is $.05 in value.
The OS in 9.4H was one of the latest - if not last - version of the OS for WPC-89 (pre -S) games, and when Ted put the old game cod on the new OS, likely something is just getting recorded incorrectly in NVRAM because of that.

But to answer your question - no, there is no value in WPC-89 (including -S) that is non-volatile - if you change the ROM out, or do a factory resent, everything is cleared. Including those totals.

Plus - how can my game have only made $61.35 since the last printout on 5/29/16, but made $157.30 since 9/29/17? Something is off, and it's likely why this is a home-only version of the ROM. As an operator, I'd be really annoyed if I couldn't trust the readouts.

Ah, makes sense now. I didn't pay attention to those specific numbers, I was just surprised at the total plays and my brain went off on a tangent...

Nono, that's perfectly fair. Honestly, I didn't even NOTICE that number until you pointed it out. I was too busy marveling at my own horrid stats. (Average ball time, under a minute? *Seriously*?! Holy crap..)

Once I fix the issues in my printer board, and can install it permanently, I may do some factory resets, and test some things to find out WHY that number is so high..

Thanks to Coyote for sharing informations about the WPC printer

Here some tips, if you're looking for more generics infos about printers used in pinballs (not tickets dispensers !).

For the alpha-numeric/DOT generations, a kit was indeed produced in january 1993, by WILLIAMS for WPC games. This kit had the reference 16-9464 :
2018-06-01_15h59_22 (resized).png

But this was not the first time a printer was used for pinball. Many years before, in 1980, ZACCARIA implement a printer interface in their pinballs. It used a specific connector (CN10 - interface connector) on their 1B1110 CPU board. The serial interface was directly connected to the input/output lines of the Signetics 2650 microprocessor. I have never see this printer, but it is clearly mentionned on the schematics :
2018-06-01_15h56_40 (resized).png

But may be, the first printer was implemented by GOTTLIEB a few years before, in their SYSTEM 80.
I don't have a picture of this one, but I've seen one, many years ago on eBay. The printer had no dedicated connector. It used some wires on the switch matrix and was used in conjunction with the bench test fixture. This "serial" printer was very similar to the one used on AIM-65 (built in 1978 by Rockwell). This was a narrow thermal printer. The datas printed were the same as thoses displayed in the bookskeeping/test menu.
For fun, we had made a LCD-device that simulate this printer : https://www.flipprojets.fr/Printer80_EN.php
Note that, this printer only exist for SYSTEM-80. Later, on SYSTEM-80A this function had been removed.

So then... might you consider sharing the design for those others who might like to tinker one together?

Yeah, I probably would. Or have a small batch of them made - would depend on costs.

I'm looking at options now, and am wondering, so I'm bumping this old thread -
If you could gt a 'printout' - would you rather:
(1) Connect a USB cable up and open a terminal/serial program to read, or
(2) Connect to an IP and telnet to an IP to retrieve the prinout, or
(3) Pull out an SD card from the expansion board to copy a file off of it containing the data?

If #2, would you want the pinball connected by WiFi or Ethernet? Or does it matter?

Seems like the USB option would be the most straight forward...
But I still have/use printers with a 'real' serial connection, so what do I know?

So this project is more a learning experience, to get me familiar with micro-controllers. I decided the final 'board' will have a Micro-USB port for connecting to and connecting by a serial port. But, it will also have a XBee plug that will allow a mesh network connection, Wifi module, or BT module plugged in and configured.

I very likely won't have them mass-produced, since.. well, I'll be surprised if 5 people are interested, much less 100.

Right now, I'm trying to focus on the uC talking/watching the WPC data lines.

Hi Coyote,

I have a T2 which I would like to add a printer option to. It's HUO but has the full S/W inside, set on easiest game & free play for the kids. I'm also interested in your design and would purchase a kit from you if you decide to make a batch. The USB option would also be fine by me if that's the easiest interface to make.

Thanks guys.
At the moment I'm still working on it, but with all the other projects, it's just going slow. I'm hoping to have a prototype working by fall.

Interesting post as I have this in my Locomotion

I was also wondering if there are any play stats stored in mine even now.

20200331_172742 (resized).jpg