822: Receipt Printer with JavaScript

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? Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads