Example of using the Sharp PC-5000 ribbon cartridge to print on plain paper. This system was made in Japan in 1983 and ran MS-DOS 2.0.
There is no ink within the printer, it uses a heated head instead. For plain paper, the ribbon cartridge is needed, but thermal paper can be used also (by just removing the ribbon cartridge).
After removing all the expansion cartridges, I found that the PC-5000 internal ROM has a built-in sample program that includes an option to print a full production description. This includes a bulleted list of product features that fits on a single page of paper.
While the print quality appears "poor" keep in mind two things: (1) there is a dial to adjust the "print contrast" that can increase the quality and (2) this printer and ribbon cartridge hasn't been used in over 30 years.