Epson printers were not immune to this either.
I used to have both an FX-100 (landscape printer) and an FX-80 (portrait printer, but with "This printer prints SIDEWAYS(tm)!" sticker, since it had the Sideways(tm) add-on that allowed Lotus 1-2-3 to rotate spreadsheets 90 degrees as they were printed). In order to get either of them to print 8-bit characters, you had to send them a control character first - I believe it was the ¢ (cent symbol), which you sent by means of "echo (Alt-155) > LPT1". Sometimes it even worked, other times it just printed a cent symbol.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
