Do you know how ?

[Rat Catcher]

I forgot to switch mine on for the LRA a few years back, Ken. When the inspector said he couldn't print a receipt and I said I think I know what's wrong there he just told me to have a look at it and he'd come back in a few minutes. 8 minutes later he came back, printed his receipt and went back for the stickers... Happy days!

In any event, it'd be easy enough to bypass the switch for the test, it'd just look like an obsolete roof sign switch or you could spend another minute at it and remove it completely. I think I did that once, probably the first year we had printers.

[Rat Catcher]

Your Hale musta been a newer model, Horse. I got my Microtax 5 from some Norn Iron based republicans working out of a shed in Finglas back in 1999/2000... on entry liberalisation. I remember discussing the fact that all the established meter installers were afraid to fit meters in cars with plata nuas (although some were doing it on a very cloak and dagger basis) and the man doing mine suggesting that he was more to be feared than to fear... or words to that effect!

[Horse]

I'm not sure rats but the metre definitely did not work without paper in the printer.  It simply said "no paper" on the metre and would not function until paper was fed into it. Right pain in the hole it was.