jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (04/08/86)
I just went through the printer selection process myself recently and ended up
with a rather expensive but really nice printer, the FUJITSU DL-2400C. It is
a 24-pin dot-matrix unit. Its letter quality mode is extremely good,
definitely good enough to send out business letters or camera-ready book
manuscripts in, in my opinion. Speed is 216 cps draft at 10 cpi and about 288
cps draft at maybe 15 cpi (a little compressed). It really flies along in
draft mode. Letter quality mode is about 96 cps, which is still far faster
than most inexpensive printers. This unit supports IBM and Epson graphics, so
should plug in and play with most mainstream software. It worked perfectly
with my Atari 800XL and Speedscript word processing software, which certainly
was not tailored to this particular printer.
It also has both parallel (Centronics) and RS-232 serial ports, selectable
from the front panel. The serial port parameters can also be selected from
the panel. A bidirectional tractor feed is included in the basic price
(better check this on all models). Automatic cut-sheet feeders are available
with 1, 2, or 3 bins. (Letterhead, memo, and second-sheet can be loaded all
at once with 3 bins.) Paper handling is superb. Dot registration on fine
graphics drawings is absolutely perfect, though probably you would have to do
such things in unidirectional mode to match the perfection of the demo
printouts. This machine is one of the few I have seen that you can run with
single sheets without unloading the tractor mechanism. Press the "unload"
button and the tractor feed paper backs out of the way so you can feed single
sheets. Press "load" (=form feed) and it moves back up into position with the
top of form automatically aligned with the print head and ready to go. You
can also form feed the paper so you can tear off what you just printed, then
reverse-form-feed it so you don't have to keep wasting sheets of paper. Now
that I am paying for the paper myself, this really hits home!
This printer also prints in seven colors! I will be paying around $890 for
it, but was quoted a price of $782 without color. I don't know what I need
color for, but I thought for ~$100 more, I decided it would be fun to have and
for some home business applications, you could save that much real fast by not
having to go get letterhead printed up!
Some other amazing features are: Hex Dump mode. Ever want to print out a
binary file without skipping half the characters and blowing away your printer
with the others. This unit will do it. How about automatic skipping of
perforations? Want to set a left margin to print some text that has no
indentation at the left? No sweat, a few keystrokes at the panel does it.
How about automatic right justification? Proportional spacing? Download your
own font? The unit has two standard ones built in which by the way take care
of most of the European languages. There are also plug-in font cartridges,
including I believe a RAM cartridge that you can program any way you want.
Any of the fonts can be rendered in italics, bold, double width, double height
and various other options by means of software linear transformations in the
printer. With all this programmability, it's a good thing the self-test mode
starts by printing out all the options you have selected!
In case you wondered, I am very definitely a FUJITSU DL2400 enthusiast right
about now!
Other 24-pin units worthy of consideration are the Epson LQ-1000 or 1500,
the NEC P5 or P6, and a Toshiba model I don't recall the number of (maybe
P324?). Oh yes, there is a Star Micronics 24-pin unit also, which Analog
magazine brags about with regard to the print quality of their program
listings these days.
If super letter quality is not important to you, the Epson RX-85(?) would
be a good choice. It is a 9-pin unit, but manages to come up with pretty darn
good NLQ output. It is about as fast as the FUJITSU. A friend of mine who is
very knowledgeable bought one and is very pleased with it.
For El Cheapo models, the Panasonic KX-1091 is widely regarded as a "best buy"
with good NLQ output and a low price of about $230 mail order. Higher priced
Panasonic models (1092, 1093) have higher speed but about the same quality.
The Epson FX-85 is another fine little printer, Okidata is widely mentioned as
a good choice, and oh yes, the Centronics GLP ("Great Little Printer") is an
inexpensive choice that my FUJITSU salesman suggested. He seems to give good
advice, so I suppose it would do well by you.
I think any of the above would serve you well if the speed/price tradeoff
suited you. Personally I am "sold" on the 24-pin approach, as the output
quality is a cut above "everybody's dot matrix printer" and people tend to\be
startled to learn that it is a dot matrix unit. And the ability to print in
color is rather dramatic! Finally, if you do a lot of printing of long drafts
and your time is as limited as mine, you REALLY should get a high-speed unit
that can print drafts at 200-plus cps. It's amazing how quickly you get used
to this speed and how painfully slow other people's printers seem when you do!
-John Sangster
jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa
...ihnp4!linus!mbunix!jhs
(617) 271-2515 (work)/235-8753 (home)