2020 Update. I never did get the LA600 working. It was such a monster of a printer, that I had to give it away during a remodel. Too big to store.

I recently won a state surplus auction that included a large amount of old DEC hardware. Most of it was junk, e.g. old VT420s with screen burn, but there was a diamond in there: a DEC LA600 MultiPrinter.

This thing is a monster: a wide carriage dot matrix printer designed for heavy use. Amazingly enough, the ribbon still has ink and the self test function works. All I need is some green bar paper, and I’ll be set.

However, short of some scavengers selling refurbished units and a service manual, I cannot find any information on this printer. Even USEnet fails me. Nary a printcap to be found.

Because of this, I’m not quite sure how to setup this beast. So, I’ve decided to try once again to setup OpenVMS in the hopes of at least proving that I can hook the LA600 up to a computer. This is, of course, assuming that OpenVMS has native way of setting up this printer.