822: Receipt Printer with JavaScript

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Wes unveils his Hack-Week project —a thermal printer controlled by JavaScript that prints out Sentry.io errors in real-time. Scott and Wes dive into the nitty-gritty of how it works, from the ESC/POS protocol to tackling socket issues, and whether the project was worth the effort.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 00:38 Brought to you by Sentry.io.
• 01:10 What is Hack Week?
• 01:41 The project.
  • Follow the posts on X.
• 02:40 Why a receipt printer?
• 03:55 How do these printers work?
  • ESC/POS.
• 05:20 Communicating with the printer.
• 07:24 ESC/POS Encoder.
• ESC/POS Encoder.
• 08:42 Socket issues.
• 09:56 Using Transformers.js to stop ‘toxic comments’.
  • Xenova’s toxic-bert.
  • Implementation in Wes’ code.
• 10:48 Back to socket issues.
• 12:18 Integrating with Sentry.
• 15:01 Printing images with Playwright.
• 16:17 Was it worth it?

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