dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (06/06/88)
I just got me a new printer ... it cost me about $350, and I'm
in love. It is the Epson LQ-500.
- large number of graphics modes (includes support for older
8 bit modes). Max resolution is 360dpi horizontal, 180dpi vertical
Graphics are *clean* and very accurate.
Fast: Graphics go as fast as normal printing when I stuff them out
PAR: I wrote a neat little program that slams out 8x8 characters
in 180 horiz x 180 vert. gfx mode (with 24 pins, it does three
lines at once) resulting in readable *very* compressed text at
180 columns and 230 lines per page. It was even readable. Likewise,
using 320dpi horizontal, I could get 360 columns, but that was only
readable if you knew sort of what was there already.
The fixes in the 1.3 printer drivers will make standard rastport
dumps just as fast.
- 24 pin printer (2 columns of 12). 2 built in letter quality fonts,
more available with cartridges. selectable through software or
via the front panel (the form feed button while the printer is
selected).
Black and White printer.
- 1K built in buffer, plus user downloadable fonts. You can set
the buffer to 8K if you don't intend to download your own fonts.
- nice plastic accessories (like a manual single-sheet feeder.
an automatic feeder is available at extra cost). The printer
has an auto-load feature.... you stick the sheet in, hit the
line feed button once, and the printer automatically advances the
sheet to the top line. Also comes with a tractor attachment. No
more fumbling with aligning the sheet just right.
The printer can utilize the entire surface area of a single sheet.
This need not be said for fanfold.
- All the standard modes. 10, 12, and 15 pitch selectable, plus a
condensed mode for 10 and 12 (12 condenced yields aprox 17.5 pitch).
And, as I said, since the parallel interface is so well done, you
can dump bitmaps faster than the printer can print them, so you
essentially can do anything.
- Lots of other features (italics, boldface, shadow and outline,
underline, enhanced, double strike, double high, double wide,
auto justification, etc...)
- other standard stuff, like margins, tabs, settable line spacing
(standard 6, 8 lpi, and then a cmd to set it to any N/180'ths of
an inch).
PROBLEMS:
No major problems yet. A couple items which I consider nice, but not
essential.
- The printer cannot do a reverse line feed. I.e. the platen goes
in one direction only.
- You cannot make the character spacing smaller. You can make it
larger, but not smaller. All the fonts are spaced just fine, but
sometimes I like to reduce the (horizontal) spacing and crush them
together. The minimum value specifiable for character spacing (0)
is *exactly* the character's standard spacing.
- a bit noisy, but I can live with that.
Side note:
Using the graphics dump capabilities, I reproduced the entire
commented Amiga includes on 12 sheets of 8.5x11 paper (double
sided). If I had used 360dpi graphics, I could have done it on
6 sheets double sided but decided I didn't want to strain my
eyes. Anybody want the program? It dumps to PAR:
-Mattberry@hor-res.UUCP (No comment) (06/08/88)
Whoops! sorry Matt - my system decided not to include my .signature because it was > 4 lines! Facist IBM clone is what it is. Anyway here it is (pls send DDump!) ...bunny!hor-res!berry -- -Steve Berry- ...!bunny!hor-res!berry "Dare to be gorgeous and unique. But don't ever be cryptic or otherwise Unfathomable. Make it unforgettably great." Intuition Reference Manual, pg 231.
mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (06/14/88)
In article <8806052121.AA27202@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > I just got me a new printer ... it cost me about $350, and I'm >in love. It is the Epson LQ-500. [deleted list of features] > Matt I'll second Matt's opinion. I picked up '500 about 2 months ago, right when they came out, at a local computer show. It's the best $320 I've spent in a long time. I wrote a review for Robo.City news, and a simple listing program that pretty-prints C source. I'll post that if anyone is interested. *** mike *** -- *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick *** "Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings" [disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]