UA0827@SYSE.SALFORD.AC.UK (12/07/88)
Hi there everybody,
I am currently a 1st year student at the University Of
Salford, Manchester, England. And have been reading, with interest, the
articles collected from the Atari 16Bit Bulletin Board. I myself own an
Atari 520STFM with internal memory upgrade to 1 Meg, 1 Meg(unformatted)
external drive, Panasonic KXP-1080 9 pin printer and use a Document
Processor called Calligrapher(from Computer Concepts). Currently I don`t
use this equipment for my studies but am seriously considering transferring
them from my home, to Salford after Christmas.
I feel that a 9 pin printer is rather inadequate from the types of
document that i will be producing and therefore, coming to the point of
this letter, was wondering if anyone out there had any recommendations
as to the suitability of a specific 24 pin printer. I would be
grateful for any replies, also any problems that certain people might have
had with a specific type/make of 24 pin printer.
Regards,
Keith Topham(UA0827@UK.AC.SALFORD.SYSE)
1st Computer Science UG.remco@tnoibbc.UUCP (Remco Bruyne) (12/08/88)
In article <8812062139.AA21409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> UA0827@SYSE.SALFORD.AC.UK writes: >Hi there everybody, > I am currently a 1st year student at the University Of >Salford, Manchester, England. And have been reading, with interest, the >articles collected from the Atari 16Bit Bulletin Board. I myself own an >Atari 520STFM with internal memory upgrade to 1 Meg, 1 Meg(unformatted) >external drive, Panasonic KXP-1080 9 pin printer and use a Document >............ was wondering if anyone out there had any recommendations >as to the suitability of a specific 24 pin printer. I would be >grateful for any replies, also any problems that certain people might have >had with a specific type/make of 24 pin printer. I bought a NEP P6+ pinwriter about two months ago and I can say that it is worth the hfl 2200,- I paid for it ! It prints fast (draft max 265 cpi, LQ 90 cpi), has a number of built-in fonts, all types of attributes (double-width, triple width, italic, etc), 80 BK input buffer. The setting is not done by means of DIP-switches, but interactively via menus. Another handy thing is that you van park the tractor-paper when you want to print on an A4-sheet or so (like the STAR LC10). The print quality is very good as may be expected for the price; the graphics resolution is 360*360 dots per inch, but many programs do not use more than 180*180 dpi which also looks reasonably well. When you find the price too high (I recall you are a student :-)) you can look at the NEC P2200, lowest price I saw: hfl 999,-. Also 24 pins and software compatible with the old P6. Let me know if you want to know more. Remco -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Remco Bruijne USENET: remco@tnoibbc PHONE: +31 15 606437 ------------------------------------------------------------------
NETOPRHM@NCSUVM.BITNET (Hal Meeks) (12/10/88)
I have owned a NECP2200 for about a year now. Print quality is great, construction seems a little flimsy but I have had no problems so far. It's compatable with the NEC P6 as well as the Epson LQ series. I think it edges out the Epson LQ500 ever so slightly in terms of price/performance. You will see it advertised as having 360x360 DPI resolution. Please keep in mind that it accomplishes this by doing two passes, which causes graphic dumps to look muddy. The 360x180 mode is much better. If you are looking for a _good deal_, there were several supply houses here in the US that were selling the old Epson LQ800 for around $300. This is a damn good printer for the money. Please keep in mind that the LQ800 came without a pinfeeder, so order with your printer. Oh course, what do I know, since I own an Amiga.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hal Meeks "I'm living in a condo, netoprhm@ncsuvm.bitnet with Henry Thoreau" hgm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu --Reagan Years, Part II
jpexg@hermes.ai.mit.edu (John Purbrick) (12/11/88)
In article <8812062139.AA21409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, UA0827@SYSE.SALFORD.AC.UK writes: > I feel that a 9 pin printer is rather inadequate from the types of > document that i will be producing and therefore, coming to the point of > this letter, was wondering if anyone out there had any recommendations > as to the suitability of a specific 24 pin printer. I would be > grateful for any replies, also any problems that certain people might have > had with a specific type/make of 24 pin printer. > Keith Topham(UA0827@UK.AC.SALFORD.SYSE) I just bought a Panasonic KX-P1124, Panasonic's competitor with the Epson LQ2500 and the NEC P2200. You can get all of these for well under US$400--I paid $299+ shipping from Harmony Computer in New York (I'm always worried when I deal with the NY bandits, but have never seriously lost. The printer arrived in 4 days.) Anyway, it's excellent. 5 built-in NLQ fonts and draft, and graphics at 180x180 dots per inch. It can print an Atari monochrome screen dump at a width of just over 3.5"--legibly, even 8x16 graphic characters. The user has several choices of paper-feed options, including a push tractor which allows printing right up to the tear-off edge, so no wasted sheet of paper between jobs. If straight ASCII text is all you want to print, there are no problems driving the KX-P1124, but graphics would be something else. Instead of selector switches, it has a complex bank of lights and buttons for setting up, rather like setting the time on a video recorder. The instruction manual is adequate to get through this, and the settings are non-volatile so you should need to do it only once. Drawbacks: It is bigger and louder than a 9-pin printer. Control codes are often different too. I use two homebrew programs for printing C programs and Degas screens, and I had to modify them both to use the new printer. In general, I think it's great.