info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (10/09/84)
From: Allan Weber <WEBER@USC-ECLC.ARPA> Has anyone had any experience with Imagewriter compatible printers from other manufacturers? An ad in Byte lists an Imagewriter upgrade for Epson printers and an Imagewriter compatible Okidata printer. I called the company and was told that the Epson upgrade consists of a serial-to-parallel converter board that plugs into the Epson and translates the Imagewriter print codes into something the Epson understands. They said that the Okidata model was not an upgrade but rather a standard Okidata printer with built-in Macintosh compatibility. I would be interested in hearing from anyone that has had any experience with either of these printers. How do they compare to the Imagewriter in terms of print quality and speed? Is it 100% compatible or are there things that it can not do? How is the reliability? A friend told me that someone from Apple or one of their dealers was recently passing around a rumor that other printer manufacturers had tried to make a Imagewriter compatible version but that the printheads burned up after a few hours of use. Thanks. Allan Weber Weber@USC-ECLC -------
info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (10/15/84)
From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA I have an Okidata version that is Imagewriter compatible. It is probably not the thing to get, at least not right now. Why? Well, the fundamental horizontal resolution of the printhead is not the same as the Imagewriter's. It in- terprets the codes sent to it correctly as near as I can tell (we only used with the Mac for a few minutes, screen dumps, and a little write output), BUT an application that relies on the horizontal dot resolution of the printer to do micro- spacing didn't work. It's the same reason that Okidata's Plug'N'Play option to emulate the Epson didn't work -- they don't have the same smallest horizontal motion, and the Oki ROMs are interpolating and patching up things later, it thinks. Brian