An old DOS based accounting system (NEBBS) was what the printer had to work with. It is running on a Windows ME machine so this gives you a bit an idea on the age of the computer as well. This is for my wife’s boss and she had an old lexmark inkjet printer fail. I brought over an old laser printer I had kicking around the house, lexmark as well. It worked with NEBBS half decent but had a habit of smearing the cheques (heat problem I think) and it is a huge heavy printer.
We went out tonight and bought a Lexmark E230 to replace the SE3455 which I had brought over. The SE3455 is nice and all but it was a bit big in size and was overkill for the amount of printing they do. I was happy when the E230 started printing when we asked NEBBS to print. I have always had good luck with the Lexmark printers working with legacy applications as long as I stuck to either printing to it from the network or through the LPT port. They had bought a different brand printer last year but it didn’t work with the application.
If you are stuck looking for an inexpensive printer which will work with a legacy application, try the a Lexmark printer. They always seem to work in a pinch with different operating systems. I’ve seen the new ones work with VAX VMS, linux, DOS and Windows without any real problems.