My first computer was a TI 99-4A with a serial port. Someone gave me a TTY 33 that had an RS232 port and I used it for the output of my computer before I upgraded to an Oki serial dot matrix printer. The TTY was so noisy that my wife and family insisted that I keep it out in the garage. It did not print very well below about 40 deg. F.
That is what I used my KSR-33 for when I first got it in 1984 from Island Tel. First with a Timex-Sinclair TS-1000, then with a VIC-20. I eventually did as you did and upgraded to an OKI printer. When I did that, I loaned the KSR-33 to a friend, who used it for about a year until he got a dot matrix printer, then it sat in his barn for 20 years, until I recovered it. The mice had been living in it, the cover and platen were broken, and it was seized solid with mouse urine and rust. It really was a nightmare! It took me at least two months to find parts, and to do it, but I did manage to rebuild it, and it is today a prized and working part of the collection.
I still have that OKI printer that replaced it, in a box in a cupboard in the museum. I also still somewhere have the TS-1000, interfaces and memory modules, a C-64, a Commodore PET and a Commodore Super PET computer, and yes, even a TRS-80. I still have my interface box for the early computers and the teletype as well. I guess that is the definition of a pack-rat; it is amazing what happens to stick around over the years!
Just to show you what 20 years of bad storage does to a machine, see the photos below - 1 and 2, after solvent cleaning and removal of pine cones and seeds, but before rebuilding. There were even small pine cones stored under the keyboard! The platen and most parts were frozen in place, and 3rd, after rebuilding!
Most would have given it up as a lost cause, but it had special meaning to me, as it had been my first teletype, and came direct from Island Tel in 1984. They gave away several at that time to local Hams including me. At the time, it was really amazing, having a "real" printer for my computers! My how things have changed.