andrewr@yang.earlham.edu (06/08/90)
Folks: I may be investing in a Mac system of my own soon. Here's my problem (?): Before I had access to a Mac, I used an Atari 800XL with an Epson RX80 F/T+ (Please, no boos). The Epson has been tried and true, and is still in fine shape. I'd hate to ditch it and blow another $2-300 on an "Apple-compatible" dot-matrix printer. I know Orange Micro makes a Grappler-type box that promises to translate Apple to Epson, but does it live up to the advertising? For instance, can it do the "best-quality" mode that requires a double pass (with microfeed) to simulate 18-pin graphics? Does the serial to parallel conversion present strange problems, etc.? Are there other solutions besides this particular piece of hardware? I would be grateful for any testimonials on the subject. --Andrew Roazen, @ Earlham College, Richmond, IN 47374 (317) 983-1527
rw02@GTE.COM (Robert Weihmayer) (06/11/90)
From article <811@yang.earlham.edu>, by andrewr@yang.earlham.edu: > > I know Orange Micro makes a Grappler-type box that promises to translate > Apple to Epson, but does it live up to the advertising? For instance, can > it do the "best-quality" mode that requires a double pass (with microfeed) > to simulate 18-pin graphics? Does the serial to parallel conversion > present strange problems, etc.? > There have been a number of such requests lately, dealing with epson or other printer to be used with MACs. I was helped myself by people on the net when I faced the dilemna of reusing my Epson LQ850 from my IBM-PC configuration on my MAC IIci. What finally worked was the Grappler LX. I am fairly satisfied with it. Its software did cause some interferences which were confusing at first and made the initial installation painful (I finally found that the Grappler SW had problems with Multiclip). However in the end, and in spite of my environment which has a wide variety of CDEVs and INITs, it is working well and providing the full range of printing services. Its high quality mode is not bad. So I would recommend it. Lets see what other people's experience is. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Weihmayer weihmayer@gte.com GTE Laboratories Inc. 40 Sylvan Road Senior Member of Technical Staff Waltham, MA 02254, USA Phone: (617) 466-2811 ----------------------------------------------------------------------