Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz) (07/03/90)
The Kodak Diconix 150 Plus Printer: A Perfect HP48SX Companion
If you're searching for a companion 80-column printer to go with the
HP48SX, I would heartily recommend the serial-interface version of the
Kodak Diconix 150 plus. This 3-pound battery or AC-powered injet printer
uses plain 8 1/2- inch tractor-feed paper, operates at 180 characters per
second in draft mode and uses HP Thinkjet plain paper ink cartridges.
Back in the early HP41 days, there was the HP82143A plug-in printer; and
for approximately the same price today one gets an Epson FX and
IBM-compatible that is almost as small and portable. The serial
interface version comes with a female DB-25 connector on the side, and
the DB-9 to DB-25 converter supplied with the HP48 Serial Interface Kit
is the wrong gender, but an inexpensive male-to-male DB-9/DB-25 converter
may be obtained at many computer stores, including Radio Shack.
There are two sets of set-switches inside the printer, and the settings
that I am going with are:
Main Switches: Serial Switches:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - Down (C/R only) 1 - Down \
2 - Down (11-inch paper) 2 - Down | - 9600 baud
3 - Down (Epson FX compatibility) 3 - Down /
4 - Down (No skip perf) 4 - Up - 8-bit data
5 - Down \ 5 - Down \ No
6 - Down |- USA Character 6 - Down / Parity
7 - Down |- Set Chosen 7 - Down \ XON/
8 - Down / 8 - Up / XOFF
9 - Down (12 char/inch) 9 - Up Carrier Detect Ignored
10 - Up Data Set Ready Ignored
11 - Up Clear to Send Ignored
Printer setup was easy, with a single ink jet cartridge supplied.
Basically, all that had to be done was to insert the paper (a fairly easy
task), insert the ink cartridge (after priming with a paper clip), plug
in the AC adapter, turn on and go. Two manuals are suppied with the unit;
the first being the "Fast Track Operator's Guide" and the second, thicker
one the Reference Manual (containing complete details to do lots of
custom operations in user-generated character sets, hi-res graphics,
etc).
On the HP48, be sure to have flags -33 clear (indicating serial I/O
device) and -34 set (indicating serial printing device). My IOPAR is set
to
{ 9600 0 1 1 1 3 } 9600 baud, no parity, XON/XOFF, chksum 1, trans 1
and PRTPAR set to
{ 0 "" 80 ".."} 0 delay, no remapping, 80 char/line, CR/LF.
^^-- (these two chars supposed to show as two blocks)
The EPSPRINT I/O Utility library from the Serial Interface Kit disk also
works like a charm, being able to dump graphics nicely to hard copy via
the PR1, PRVAR or PRLCD command.
After searching for the best price for the serial version of the 150 plus
for awhile, I found it going for $329.00 from a dealer in Computer
Shopper Magazine. They gouged me on additional ink cartridges, however.
I'd recommend looking toward some place like ElekTek (which charges only
$7.50 apiece) for cartridges, which are billed to last for around 500
pages of text. Print quality is nice, with the "multi-pass" fonts ("NLQ"
and "Quality") being the best, although compressed or uncompressed draft
mode was perfectly acceptable for quick listings.
Overall, I'm ecstatic about being able to find a printer that I can carry
around with my HP48 so I'm not tied to my PC in order to get a quick
80-column listing or graphics printout. Quality is more than adequate,
size and weight are excellent and I believe the value for the money is
right up there.
Jake Schwartz rayde@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM (ray_depew) (07/05/90)
Personally, I prefer the DeskJet or DeskJet Plus. ADVANTAGES: - 300 dpi res graphics lets you use HPPRINT to make grob printouts any size you want. - Choice of fonts. - Laser-quality black print, on single sheet plain paper. - Same low price. DISADVANTAGES (tongue planted firmly in cheek here): - Admittedly more difficult to carry with you - Not battery powered. Either way you can't go wrong. We make the ink cartridges for the Diconix printer right here, one building over from where your HP48SX was made. Ray Depew HP >>>InkJet Components Operation<<< ---------- Sprinkle smileys liberally all over the confection, and take with a grain of salt. Everything I've said is true, but I only work here.
darrylo@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Darryl Okahata) (07/06/90)
In comp.sys.handhelds, rayde@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM (ray_depew) writes: > Personally, I prefer the DeskJet or DeskJet Plus. > ADVANTAGES: [ ... ] > - Same low price. Ummm ... so where can you find a DeskJet for $330? -- Darryl Okahata UUCP: {hplabs!, hpcea!, hpfcla!} hpnmd!darrylo Internet: darrylo%hpnmd@hp-sde.sde.hp.com