Message-ID: <7694@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 26-Jan-85 00:12:01 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7694
Posted: Sat Jan 26 00:12:01 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Jan-85 06:01:09 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
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The Blue Chip M120/10 Printer
A Review
Why might you find this printer interesting? It's price tag is $200 on sale
from time to time at BEST Products; and it sure is a lot of printer for that
price! Here's a rundown of the major features:
Printing method: dot-matrix, 8x9 dot field per character with half-dot
horizontal resolution.
Printer width: Paper size 4" to 10", fanfold, single sheet, or roll. Sprocket
feed or friction feed (or both simultaneously). Printable
width 8". Original and 2 copies on multi-part paper.
Print head: 9-pin head, square pins (1/80" by 1/72"), 30,000,000 character
life (replacable).
Printing speed: 100 characters/second or 120 characters/second (inconsistent
documentation?), bi-directional printing in some character
sizes and modes. Line feed is 200 milliseconds.
Ribbon: Multistrike carbon on plastic film; equivalent to ribbon cartridge for
Mannesman Tally Spirit 80 or Commodore 1526; approximately
$6.00 to replace; ribbon life ~1,000,000 characters.
Character Size: Normal Pica - 7/80" wide, 8/72" high, 10CPI
Normal Elite - 7/96" wide, 8/72" high, 12CPI
Enlarged - 14/80" wide, 8/72" high, 5CPI
Condensed - 4/80" wide, 8/72" high, 17.75CPI
Enlarged Condensed - 8/80" wide, 8/72" high, 8.875CPI
Enlarged Elite - 14/96" wide, 8/72" high, 6CPI
Proportional - 2/80" to 7/80" wide, 8/72" high, Variable CPI
Super/Subscript - 7/80" wide, 4/72" high, 10CPI
Condensed Super/Subscript - 4/80" wide, 4/72" high, 17.75CPI
Character Sets: 24 selections of sets; each set a different combination of
some of the following:
96 - Ascii
96 - Ascii italic
64 - Katakana
103- Block graphics (8x8)
39 - International special characters
48 - Greek alphabet
(Character sets are high quality, but not Near-Letter-Quality)
Line Spacing: 6LPI, 8LPI, programmable in increments of 1/72" or
1/216". Reverse line feed in the same increments.
Print Emphasis: Emphasized mode - each dot of each character is struck twice
and slightly elongated horizontally.
Double strike mode - each dot of each character is struck twice
and slightly elongated vertically.
Underlined mode - 9th pin is fired under all characters and
between characters giving continuous underline.
Emphasized is available only in certain sizes but may be com-
bined with Double strike for super bold characters.
Interface: Centronics parallel is standard, but RS-232 serial may be available.
Centronics interface provides for 8 data lines, strobe, ack-
nowledge, busy, paper-out, selected, auto-feed, reset, and
error lines.
Programmability: Compatible with EPSON control codes and escape sequences.
Actually a superset of EPSON codes - far too numerous to
list here!
Buffer: Printer comes with 112 byte input buffer; this is expandable to 1792
bytes or 3840 bytes by addition of 1 or 2 Hitachi 6116 RAM
chips (~$5.00 each). 3840 byte buffer holds about 1 single
spaced typed elite letter page. A switch allows 1792 bytes
of the buffer to be dedicated to holding a downloaded
character set (8x8 or 7x9) and Vertical Format tab channels.
Switches (External): On-Line, Form-Feed, Line-Feed, Buffer allocation, Default
printing mode, Default form length, Default line spacing,
Default Column length, Default skip-over-perforation, Slashed
Zero Option, Default Character Set, and POWER.
Indicators: Power, Paper-out, Ready, On-line, Audible-beeper (short beep on
ASCII BEL code, long beep on error/paper-out)
Graphics Modes: Single density - 80 dots/inch by 8 dots (8/72" high)
Double density - 160 dots/inch (overlapping) by 8 dots
9 Pin - Same as Single or Double density, but 9 dots high
Special Modes: Self test 1 - repeats entire character set over and over
Self test 2 - repeats 95 Ascii characters in a ripple pattern
Hex mode - Prints each byte received in hex, 20 per line
(Each special mode is selected by holding down the Form-feed
and Line-feed switches in various combination during power up).
WOW! All that and so far I've only found three minor "bugs":
1. One of the two British characters sets is missing the British Pound sign.
2. The horizontal plotting dot density is greater than that of the EPSON
printers; thus plotting programs intended to output to EPSON printers will
produce plots slightly compressed horizontally. (not really a bug)
3. The ACKNOWLEDGE pulse coming back from the CENTRONICS interface is 10 micro-
seconds long; it should be 5 microseconds. This appears to cause minor
problems with some Apple IIe screen dump software/hardware combinations.
Available from the same manufacturer and retailers is the Blue-Chip
Commodore interface (Commodore serial bus to Centronics) for $40.
This is nothing more than a Cardco ?+G interface stripped of it's
dip-switches (ie. permanently soldered into EPSON mode), and at that
price, is a real bargain. Commodore users should also find this
printer works well with the Tymac, Xetec, and Micrographics interfaces
in EPSON mode.
The print quality is vastly superior to any other printer I've seen
demonstrated in the under-$300 price range (the square pin technology
goes a long way toward the high quality). As the ribbon becomes more
worn out, the print quality remains excellent, but the text takes on a
slightly uneven quality from word to word or line to line as more or
less used sections of the ribbon come under the head. Since the
ribbon is in a cartridge, it's quite easy to use an old ribbon for
draft quality work or listings, and pop in a relatively new ribbon to
produce a final document or letter from time to time. In graphics
mode, the square pins allow areas to be fully filled in with black
even in the single density mode, a distinct advantage over EPSON
printers. There is a warning in the manual about prolonged duty cycle
restrictions on continuous pin firing (due to overheating), but in
graphics mode, the firmware seems to have built in pauses such that
the duty cycle could never be exceeded. With normal text, the only
way this could be a problem would be if many lines were all printed
continuously with underlining turned on.
This is definitely a lot of printer for the money. Even the case
seems to be very high quality. The warranty is 180 days (6 months).
The manufacturer is:
Blue Chip Electronics
2 West Alameda Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85282
602-991-9833
Marketers: BEST Products, LaBelle's, Jafco, Dolgin's, Miller Sales, Rogers,
Great Western.
Toll-Free Number for information: 1-800-556-1234 (in CA, 1-800-441-2345)
PS: Warning - In BEST Catalog showrooms, there are a small quantity of printers
which have the Blue Chip M120/10 stock number, but are instead an inferior
printer called the CPI-80 (Computer Peripherals Inc.). Apparently, Blue
Chip could not get the real item from Japan in time for their marketers to
meet their advertising deadlines, so the other similar printer was sub-
stituted until the real ones arrived. The true Blue-Chip printer is
Characterized by a set of slide switches under a small cover on the top
(outside) of the printer, while the CPI-80 has these functions buried on
a DIP switch deep inside the printer. The manual with the CPI-80 is
vastly inferior, and I suspect the printer is too (for one thing, the char
sizes are quite a bit smaller than normal).
Any details I left out? Send questions via net mail to me:
Frank Prindle
Prindle@NADC.Arpa
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