T6100 TN012 Rev New

How Old Is My Line Printer?
 
  We have been asked on numerous occasions the question, "How old is my line printer?"

Since 1989, the serial numbers on the Tally line printers have been configured so that you can tell the year the printer was manufactured, the month in which the printer was manufactured and the model number of the printer. This information is of great use when we assess a printer's readiness for upgrades.

A typical serial number for a Tally line printer is D67A20548 and from this we can decode that the printer is a MT691 built in January 1993.

How do we decode that?

The first letter of the serial number, in this case a D, represents the last digit of the year of manufacture. The first letter is incremented each year with the starting year of 1989 or 2000. So from the following table, D representing 2, yields the year of manufacture as 1992 or 2003. We know that we stopped making the MT691 printers in the 1990s so the year of manufacture is 1992.
 
First Letter Year of Build First Letter Year of Build
       
A 1989 A 2000
B 1990 B 2001
C 1991 C 2002
D 1992 D 2003
E 1993 E 2004
F 1994 F 2005
G 1995 G 2006
H 1996    
I 1997    
J 1998    
K 1999    
  The next two numbers represent the model number of the printer but note that these are not necessarily what you might expect. From the following table we deduce that 67 could be a MT691, T6092, T6140 or T6141 printer. To finally determine the printer as a MT691 would need us to eyeball the printer.
 
First 2 Numbers Model No. First 2 Numbers Model No.
       
21 T6212 or T6215 48 T6090 or T6091 or T6100 or T6101
28 T6218 64 MT645
32 6312 66 MT661 or T6082
36 6306 67 MT691 or T6092 or T6140 or T6141
46 T6045 or T6050 68 T6180
  And finally, the second letter denotes the month of manufacture and from the following table we deduce that the month of manufacture was January.
 
Second Letter Month of Build Second Letter Month of Build
       
A January G July
B February H August
C March I September
D April J October
E May K November
F June L December
  So now you can deduce for yourself just when your printer was built!
 
  Date: 17 December 2003
 Source: TUS
Prepared by: Brian Foster