From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!edler Newsgroups: net.micro Title: matrix printer query results Article-I.D.: cmcl2.29841 Posted: Thu Feb 3 20:43:54 1983 Received: Sun Feb 6 10:13:28 1983 Several weeks ago I posted a query on dot-matrix printers with (I think) the following characteristics: under $1000 "reasonable" print quality wide (~15 in.) platten tractor and friction feed bit graphics (complete control on the dots) serial rs232 interface Well, I figured I should follow up, so here it is. Any further info would be appreciated. I haven't really made a decision yet. Thanks to those who responded with the following information. Jan Edler cmcl2!edler (nyu) edler@nyu (I think) pyuxll!jse (abi piscataway) ------------------- We have several C.Itoh 8510/ACD printers and are very happy with them. Features include: * 120 cps bidirectional print with full head motion logic * Graphics mode with 160 dots/inch horizontal by 144 dots/inch vertical. * Built in fonts are: pica, elite, compressed, proportional, double wide, Greek and graphic. * Bold and underline capabilities * RS-232 serial interface with 3K buffer. Understands XON/XOFF, and DTR flow control. Runs at line speeds up to 9600 baud. * Friction and tractor feeds. Can use single sheet feed, roll paper, fanfold or multipart forms. * Fairly small and unobtrusive. Rather spartan front panel with controls for select, line-feed and page eject, and indicator lights for power-on, select and out-of-paper. * Price: $600 mail order, slightly higher from local distributors. We've put together a nroff terminal description so we can use the proportional font and output document draft. The 8510 has an 8" carriage, but the C.Itoh Prowriter 1550 is exactly the same printer with 15.5" carriage instead (for about $150 more than the 8150). If you just want to have 132 column output, the 8510's compressed font gives you 136 columns on 8" paper, and it's very readable. ------------------- I've heard nothing but good things about the Epson MX100 - around $700 with F/T fitted. ------------------- We use the OKIData MicroLine 84 printer which meets your requirements except it may be $150-200 over your $1K limit. It prints at 200cps in correspondence quality mode and 50cps in "near letter quality" (their terminology) mode. The RS232 interface includes a 2K buffer (smaller ones were available in past so be careful in specs for purchase). Without the RS232 interface (i.e. Centronicsonly) it is under $1K. Seems well built and maintenance manual is available for$35. Have also used IDS Prism but don't know if it is available with wide platen. ------------------- I just bought a dot matrix printer, a C.Itoh Prowriter. I am very happy with it. I researched printers quite a bit before buying it. The only one I wasn't able to look at was the IDS Microprism. Prowriter is an upgrade of the NEC 8023, as follows: 120 cps logic seeking bidirectional integral tractor and friction feed many character attributes: 5x7 characters with true descenders in a 7x9 box pica(80 cols), elite(96), compressed(136) pitches all pitches can be elongated proportional spaced printing with microjustification underline and boldface attributes decent graphics: one pass: 72v x 160h (dots per inch) two pass: 144v x 160h horizontal movement between dots of 160 dpi (print 8 bits vertically at a time) vertical movement of N/144 where 0