Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 ggr 02/21/84; site desoto.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!desoto!benw From: benw@desoto.UUCP (B Weber) Newsgroups: net.micro.atari Subject: OKIMATE 10 REVIEW Message-ID: <535@desoto.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Oct-84 12:38:50 EDT Article-I.D.: desoto.535 Posted: Tue Oct 2 12:38:50 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Oct-84 19:52:22 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway Lines: 152 ---- I received the following review of the OKIMATE-10 printer from Frank Prindle, who requested I post it to the net. Many thanks to Frank for sharing his experience with the printer. Thanks also to Kit Kimes for sending me additional specs on the machine. Ben Weber ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From uucp Tue Oct 2 11:43 EDT 1984 >From ucbvax!prindle@nadc.ARPA Tue Oct 2 11:43:27 1984 remote from ihnp4 Date: 2 Oct 1984 10:02:32-EDT From: ihnp4!ucbvax!prindle@NADC.ARPA Subject: okimate-10 Message-Id: <8410021412.AA11401@UCB-VAX.ARPA> Received: by ihnp1.ATT.UUCP (sendmail 4.12/9-Jan-84) id AA07954; 2 Oct 84 10:39:57 CDT (Tue) Received: by ihnp4.ATT.UUCP; id AA21495; 2 Oct 84 10:39:51 CDT (Tue) Received: from nadc (nadc.ARPA.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/4.31) id AA11401; Tue, 2 Oct 84 07:12:50 pdt Received: from ihnp1.UUCP by py/garage/desoto.DK; 8410021543 To: desoto!benw@BERKELEY.ARPA Status: RO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OKIMATE-10 Color Printer from Okidata, Inc. ------------------------------------------- Manufacturer: Okidata, Inc., Mt. Laurel, NJ Dealer: BEST Products Inc. (Discount Showroom Distributer) Price: Approximately $210 plus tax including Commodore (or Atari) interface, black ribbon, color ribbon, cable, manual, diskette, cassette, and a small amount of paper. (on sale for $20 off that price at store) Print technique: 8-dot matrix thermal head with heat transfer of ink from a film-type ribbon to ordinary paper. Will also print on thermal paper without a ribbon. Paper: Up to 8.5 inch single sheet or 9.5 inch sprocket feed Ribbon: Special cassette for OKIMATE-10, Black ~$6.00, Color ~$6.50 Black ribbon good for ~120000 characters (25-75 pages) Color ribbon good for ~30000 color characters or 10 graphic screens Fonts: 5 Fonts selectable via control characters - Normal 10CPI, 80 Char/Line, with descenders Wide 5CPI, 40 Char/Line, with descenders Fine 17.1CPI, 136 Char/Line, with descenders Bold 8.5CPI, 68 Char/Line, with descenders Reverse Normal 10CPI, 80 Char/Line, no descenders Case: Supports either Upper case/Graphics or Lower case/Upper case Graphics Capability: Commodore 1525 compatible Speed: 60 Characters per second (text), ~3 inches per second (graphics) Interface: Commodore serial bus, device #4 (jumper selectable as device #5) Color Capability: Color ribbon with sequential carriage-width blocks of three transparent additive colors. Photocell synchronization to beginning of first color block. About 50 colors can be achieved for graphics via overlay and interleave. Software: 2 Programs on disk and tape: Learn to print - a tutorial on using the printer Color screen print - a utility package which reads color graphics screens from disk, and prints them using the color ribbon. Control Codes: ^O Reset to normal font, non-graphic mode (default) ^N Wide font select ^] Fine font select ^]^N Bold font select ^R Reverse font select ^R+128 Reverse off ^Q Lower case/Upper case select (default if secondary address=7) ^Q+128 Upper case/Graphics select (default if secondary address=0) ^J Line feed ^L Form feed (11 inches from power up position) ^M Carriage return (with optional, jumper selected, line-feed) ^Pcc Tab to column cc (2 decimal digits characters) ^[^Jx Fine vertical spacing for next line is ASC(x)/144 inches ^[^Pxy Fine horiz. position ASC(x)*256+ASC(y)/60 inches ^[B Disable 1 inch perforation skip at bottom of page ^[A Enable 1 inch perforation skip at bottom of page (default) ^H Enter graphics mode (follow with 7 dot high graphics like 1525) ^Zxy Repeat graphics mode (repeats ASC(y), ASC(x) times) ^[^Y Align color ribbon to beginning of yellow/magenta/cyan set (next 3 lines printed will print on top of each other) Quality: Well, here's the bottom line. I didn't keep the printer. While it appears to be mechanically well constructed, the print quality for normal black on white printing was pretty terrible. At the darkest density setting (the manual recommends using a medium setting), the characters were just barely dark enough to tolerate (and then only on the absolutely smoothest of paper); un- fortunately the problem is more than darkness, it is consistency. The character appearance is extremely variable, with different letters on the same line and different parts of the same letter (both vertically and horizontally) of dif- ferent darkness, somewhat at random. Since it could have been the ribbon, I tried thermal paper without ribbon. The result was the same, except the print was much lighter (totally unacceptable) in addition to being inconsistent. To rule out a defective print mechanism or head, I tried a second sample and found it was essentially the same, although slightly worse on thermal paper. Incidentally, the examples printed in the manual, and the picture inside the cover of the box show very acceptable black printing, but I suspect they are doctored. Not being one to give up easily, I took my second sample to Okidata field service in Mt. Laurel, NJ. The manager there took a look at the print and said "oh, yes, that is much too light - I'll have an engineer check out a new one for you." He brings me out a box with a new printer and a piece of paper which looks semi-reasonable and says that that printer printed this piece of paper with the light-dark control at mid position. So I leave, get home, plug it in, and detect no substantial improvement - I couldn't even get it to print as good as the sample on the *same* piece of paper with the control set to *dark*, even after trying a new ribbon (they gave me a free box of ribbons!). Interestingly enough, if you are careful to use the smoothest paper, the color plotting mode is quite nice; the head moves much slower than in text mode and seems to be able to more evenly melt the ink onto the paper. The accompaning screen dump software worked very well, but did have some incorrect color renditions (for example, the C-64 has 3 shades of blue - the lightest shade of blue produced by the screen dump program was actually the medium blue of the C-64 set; many of the grey shades were too dark and acutally dark blue). Also, the vertical positioning mechanism, while quite accurate, could not quite avoid gaps or overlaps between the 7 dot high horizontal graphic fields; this somewhat (but not completely) detracted from the beauty of the final image. Black and white graphics seems to work ok too - I tried printing music from the Music Construction Set with reasonably decent results, although not all the ink seemed to stick to the paper. This printer is quite rare now, but should be showing up in computer stores within a few months. You should definitely see one demonstrated (bring some of your own paper too) before you buy. It may be that these problems are just the woes of the early production run and that by serial #20000 or so, things will improve. Then again, perhaps that's all you can get from that price technology, but if I'm going to spend 10 cents a page for a film ribbon, I'd like to get film ribbon quality out of it. Ultimately the consumer will decide if this is going to be an Okiflop or an Okisuccess. Frank Prindle Prindle@NADC.ARPA