mdperry@boulder.colorado.edu (Marc D. Perry) (10/05/90)
THIS MAY BE A RE-POSTING, I NEVER SAW THE ORIGINAL POSTED ON MY NEWSREADER. I bought a Tandy 1000 TX a few months back when they were priced to clear; now I am hunting around for a low-cost printer. Seems like a bottom-of-the-line 9-pin dot-matrix printer goes for about $150 new. A friend of mine is selling his used HP Ink-jet printer for about the same price. He bought it about 5 years ago when it was hot and new. Question 1: What are the advantages and disadvantages of Ink-jet printers? I have used LaserJet, dot-matrix, and daisy-wheel printers in the past, but know next to nothing about ink-jets. Question 2: He is running it off of an original IBM-PC. Will I require any additional software or hardware to run it off my Tandy 286 (besides a word processor)? Thanks, mdp Marc D. Perry (303) 492 8258 MCD Biology, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0347 internet: mdperry@boulder.colorado.edu
wcs) (10/08/90)
The HP Thinkjet is a nice printer. It's REALLY quiet, which is its big advantage. It works by spraying ink at the paper, and therefore works better if you use HP's special paper, which absorbs the ink fast and doesn't smear; with regular paper it helps to let the paper dry a minute before using it. The print's a bit light. The main disadvantage is that its Epson compatibility is a little bogus. Because HP "knew" you'd want to use it with a PC, it only prints 640 dots across in graphics mode, though you still get 80 columns in text mode. This means that mixing text and graphics modes doesn't work quite right, so software that depends on this (rare) will line up wrong, and software that expects to print 800 dots wide loses. Usually not a problem, and since your Tandy presumably isn't SuperVGA 800x600 your screen dumps will be ok. Also, be sure you do get one with a serial or parallel port, instead of HP-IB (IEEE488) or HP-IL ports. All in all, a nice printer for light-duty work, and much less annoying than the classic Texas Chainsaw Earsplitter printers out there. Bill -- Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs AT&T Bell Labs 4M-312 Holmdel NJ # Any time you vote for the Democrat or Republican Party, the Government wins.