#tractor feed

For more than a dozen years I used a tractor feed dot matrix printer to print business checks, until my old printer (almost exactly like the Panasonic pictured below) gave out and I had to turn to a laser printer as my daily business printer. I still have some tractor feed checks left over that I occasionally use. So today I went into my bank and had one of these tractor feed checks with me, and the young man who was the teller was unfamiliar with tractor feed printers. Once I gave a brief explanation, I then started in on dot matrix printers, but then I stopped myself and said, “I guess only old people like me know about these obsolete technologies.”

In the moment it seemed a little fantastic to me that someone would be unfamiliar with dot matrix tractor feed printers, but I have also heard that young people have no idea why the “save” icon on most computers looks the way it does (i.e., like a compact floppy disk). The years pass, and formerly familiar technologies increasing populate imaginations and museums, but fall out of regular use.

When those individuals have passed away who used these technologies in their every day life, they will live on only in museums and perhaps old videos that seem increasingly quaint over time.