Source: 80-US – January 1979
Apparently, 1979 was literally pre-history as far as home printers were concerned. Here we have an ad for a “Selectra-Print” system by a company called Micro Computer Devices (mcd). The Selectra-Print was not a printer exactly, it was a Selectric II typewriter modified to interface with a computer and automatically type your documents. This ad appeared in the January 1979 issue of US-80 which was a TRS-80 publication. The TRS-80 (Model I as it would later be known) had been released in 1979 and its successor, the Model III, was not yet available.
This “printer” was not specific to the TRS-80 but it was one of the computers it was available for. It only cost a mere $1925 which adjusted for inflation would be about $6900 today. The TRS-80 version was a little more expensive than the $1850 standard price, I suspect because of the interface. Though an RS-232 interface was an extra $195 so I’m not sure what you could hook it to with no extras. However, it is advertised as being compatible with a bunch of computers including the Apple II, Commodore PET, Heath H8, IMSAI (Matthew Broderick’s computer from Wargames), Cromenco, Alpha Microsystems, Space Byte, North Star Horizon, SWTP, Vector Graphic, Sol, Plymorphic, Digital Group, Ohio Scientific, Altair, Sorcerer, Xitran, Rex, KIM, EXORcisor, etc.
I guess one benefit of such a setup is that getting “letter quality” printouts wouldn’t be a problem.
