dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP (07/11/87)
>Well, I got my KX-P1080AP today. As advertised, it's a 100% Apple- >compatible printer. It took about three minutes to get it from the >...!ngp!walt!mentat. What is your impression of construction, etc.? Imagewriters, whatever their faults, are built like tanks. How does this one compare?
mentat@auscso.UUCP (Robert Dorsett) (07/12/87)
In article <174400041@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >>Well, I got my KX-P1080AP today. As advertised, it's a 100% Apple- >>compatible printer. It took about three minutes to get it from the >>...!ngp!walt!mentat. > >What is your impression of construction, etc.? Imagewriters, whatever >their faults, are built like tanks. How does this one compare? If you drop this thing, it'd probably break, unlike the IW's.:-) Other than that, my main gripe is the tractor feed system. As I said, it requires paper to be passed under the roller, then the tractor grabs it on top. The problem in this approach is that one is forced (a) to rip the paper where there's no support (thus tearing the paper irregularly) or (b) disable the tractor system and rip the paper with the friction feed in (which requires the tractor to be re-loaded). I find this a pain, since I got quite used to an automatic tearing action with the old IW. Currently, I'm running the printer with the top cover off (just a smoked plastic assembly covering the tractors) so I can get to them easily. The only other gripe is that, again due to the tractor design, it's impractical to back up paper in the tractor mode. Friction feed is no problem. In fact, it works well enough that I'm using IT to guide my fanfold instead of the tractors at the moment... On the bright side of things, I haven't had any paper jams after printing 200-odd pages! On an ImageWriter I, I could always look forward to two or three. The paper guides on this thing are really well designed, meant to keep paper going INTO the printer away from paper going OUT of the printer. Sound-wise, the printer is quieter than the ImageWriter. It's slightly light- er than the IW, as well as slightly smaller. -- Robert Dorsett {allegra,seismo}!sally!ngp!walt!mentat University of Texas at Austin {allegra,seismo}!sally!ngp!mentat mentat@ausco.UUCP