peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (04/01/84)
There were two interesting bits of information about HP personal computer products in the March 23rd edition of the Toronto Globe & Mail: Just announced: The Thinkjet, a 150cps inkjet printer that operates at <50dB, will sell for Cdn$680 in Canada (<$500 in the US, maybe <$400, I'd guess), and uses $13 ink cartridges good for 500 pages. It weighs 6 lbs. HP expects to be making 40,000 a month by October, in Oregon and Singapore. It uses a 12x11 matrix to form "near letter-quality" output. It is unique in that it doesn't have a pump; rather, the ink is vaporized by rapid heating, propelling the ink above the vapor bubble through a nozzle. A corporate goal: "Our intention (is) to move from the 4th or 5th to the 2nd largest personal computer manufacturer in Canada within the next 2 to 3 years". They expect IBM to be first but also expect to beat Apple. As a start, they are making 20,000 HP-150's a month, worldwide. p. rowley, U. Toronto
BILLW@Sri-Kl.ARPA (04/06/84)
I have a ThinkJet. Its a pretty nice little printer. Available with several different interfaces: HPIB, HPIL, and Parallel. The HPIL version is battery powered. Do the ink cartridges really cost $13? That seems to be quite a bit for only 500 pages... Anyway... The print quality is pretty good, but I wouldnt call it "near letter quality", and you need to use special (absorbent) ink jet paper - although "any paper may be used", the print quality is noticabley lower when printing on normal paper. it IS quiet! The thinkjet does raster graphics, rather than the more popular column at a time graphics. This makes it easier to program for graphics output (in my opinion, anyway...) The character set includes some of the HP math symbols, printing modes include bold and various expanded fonts, but no italics. BillW