scottm@cavell.UUCP (Scott McPhee) (11/25/84)
A new printer interface has hit the market and I have had the chance to examine it, so here are some details. CONNECTIONS - the TURBO/GT uses the serial port (like a standard Commodore printer) and also uses the cassette port for power. The connection on the cassette port is a "transparent" connection, ie. there is a card on the back of the plug so you can also plug in your datasette at the same time. Of course, the TURBO offers a centronics type plug and ribbon to go to the printer. There is about 5' of serial cord, 3' of 'power line' that comes out of the serial plug and goes to the cassette port, and about 2' of ribbon cable - enough total length to satisfy any set-up. FEATURES ---- the GT claims faster graphics dumps than leading interfaces and even supplies machine code routines in the user manual so you can type in graphics dump routines for a series of printers. - Speaking of which, there are 3 dip switches accessible from the outside of the GT that enable a wide selection of printer 'groups' which include all the populate names: Expson, Gemini, Talysman, Sharp, and on and on and on. - There is a plug in BUFFER option of either 16K or 32K. These buffers are in similar sized units ( 6" X 3" ) with plugs that mate to the side of the GT. Only one buffer may be used at a time. ie: no piggy backing. The price of the 16K buffer runs the same as the TURBO/GT itself - about $140 (Canadian dollars) locally. They claim that 8K of the 16K buffer can be filled in about 19 seconds, upon testing, I believe them. Actually I filled 10K in the same time by printing long strings out to the thing from BASIC. - I personally own a Tymac "The Connection" interface and have to admit that the Commodore graphics characters that the GT reproduces are far better - the printed characters appear closer to the 'truth' as seen on your monitor. - The GT will reproduce reversed characters (as in the first line of a disk directory) and "The Connection" will not - it merely underlines them. - EMULATION of the Commodore 1525, 801 is offered on power up. Open 4,4 will behave as if you had a Commodore printer. Other secondary addresses offer various listing modes that will expand certain key sequences into what they mean - <RED> for example instead of printing the graphics character for red. - There is a built in test command to inspect the state of the interface - by merely typing Open4,4,16:print#4 COMMENTS ---- I think the black plastic case is rather flimsey on both the buffers and the GT itself. I didn't like the feel when I plugged the buffer into the side of the interface. It made sort of a soggy connection feels and the cases "gave" and made a snap sound (I thought I broke it but I didn't on inspection) and I wasn't really pressing hard. However, the buffer worked correctly after it was appended. - If you have a printer that is fast (100 CPS and above) then buffers are NOT JUSTIFIED - the saving in time to load the buffer is not that substantial compared to printing the file outright. I own a Gemini 10X and calculated the speed throughput advantage to be about 4 times. Not that great since I can wait one minute and 10 seconds instead of 20 seconds with no feeling of efficiency loss. IF you own a LETTER QUALITY daisy or the like, then seriously consider at least the 16K buffer - since a 3K tokenized BASIC program can easily expand into 10K of listing. - The manual is good and walks you through setup and explains things nicely with fast look up tables for reference. - TURBO carries a guarantee (I think the regular 90 days) against defects etc. OVERALL I was impressed with the quality of the manual, and results of the interface, but didn't like the cheapness of the case and the plug-and-wire for the cassette port. The other plugs are good - normal centronics and a plastic cased serial plug. The switches and external accessibility of RAM buffers is great. There is also a RESET switch on the buffer to clear it and reset the interface. There is one LED on the GT to indicate power. The GT is a comparable product to the Cardco +G, The Connection, and other high level printer interfaces - with nothing really substantially better than any of them except for the buffers if you have a slow printer. AUTHOR - Scott McPhee, Software Design at the University of Alberta.