[net.micro.cbm] New printers for c64

sct@lanl.ARPA (03/07/85)

  Yesterday I almost bought the Blue Chip printer at LaBelle's.   The price
was $239.00.  When I asked for the interface for a C64 they said they didn't
have any an couldn't tell me when then would get any in stock.  I subsequently
did not buy the printer.
  I have since looked at other printers and have found that the Gemini 10x
has a successor, the Gemini SG 10.  Has anyone purchased one of these?
From what I read the new printer has a "near letter quality" mode plus a
2K print buffer.  It supposedly has all of the other features of the old
Gemini 10X.
  I also bought the Cardoco +G interface.  Are most people out there who have 
this interface happy with it?
  I will summarize replies to the net.
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***

mikevp@proper.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (03/11/85)

> I also bought the Cardco +G interface.  Is everyone else who bought
> one of these happy with it?

I bought one of these, and I am very UNhappy with it.  I am using it with
an Epson MX80, so my experience may not be applicable to the Gemini.
Printing any kind of graphics takes *f*o*r*e*v*e*r* (that includes the
Comodore special characters, anything that is not standard ASCII) because
it does continuous forward-backward shuttling of the print head back and
forth.  This beats the print mechanism to death, and takes about 45-50
seconds for every single line of print.  Also, for all potential Epson/Cardco
users out there, you absolutely MUST have Graftrax+ to run this:  The original
Graftrax will not work for anything but straight ASCII text, though the
Cardco people will swear up and down that you don't need Graftrax+. 

Personally, if I knew now what I knew then, I would look for something else.