Ibico LTR-1 Letter Quality Printer

ZX Computing

Brian Beckett

GETTING INTO PRINT ZXC looks at two low cost, high quality printers. If you use your computer for anything other than beating back never-ending hordes of aliens, a printer is becoming almost an unavoidable necessity. As the QL includes the excellent word-processing package Quill in the price, owning one without the accompanying printer is rather like owning a shotgun without any shells, but its difficult even to take full advantage of the Spectrum without one. The only problem is that printers of any quality can be horrendously expensive, often costing twice the price of the computer. Fortunately, prices have been dropping recently and even better news a range of low cost, high quality printers looks certain. Basically the idea seems to be to give the buyer high grade print without all the added features that, however desirable they may be, add substantially to the cost. Already two machines of this type have appeared on the market, the Brother M-1009 and the Ibico LTR-1 sold in this country by Saga Systems. IBICO LTR-1 Supplier: Saga Systems, [redacted] If you want high grade letter quality print at a very reasonable £120 (previously £169.95) then the LTR-1 is the (only) answer, but it carries few, if any, additional feature, like the M-1009, the LTR-1 weighs 3kg but is slightly smaller measuring 298mm x 198mm x 63mm. It prints at 12cps and employs a unique golfball like head mechanism that takes its ink from a roller (replaceable at £2.50) situated directly behind it. The head is estimated to have a life span of 20 million characters and carries only one typeface, Elite 12, to work with. The character set consists of 96 letters and symbols spread over a barrel like arrangement of five wheels. The LTR-1 comes with a Centronics interface but there is a mechanism for adapting it to directly accommodate an RS232C connector to effectively convert it into a serial printer. It is designed for A4 paper (or anything smaller) and has an annoying paper feeding knob that has to be pushed in to turn and is hard to get a real grip on. A slightly bigger knob offering a real grip would be a distinct improvement. Nonetheless anyone wanting straight forward computer printout and letters manuscripts with a very high quality letter print at a bargain price should seriously look at the LTR-1. The print is indistinguishable from a good typewriter and would be ideal for anyone willing to sacrifice a bit of speed in exchange for an economical wordprocessor. Both Brother and Ibico deserve a great deal of credit for bringing quality printing within a price range of the non-dedicated computer hobbyist and the small businessman toying with the idea of some computerisation. Of the two, Brother's M-1009 is clearly the choice for those wishing to take full advantage of the capabilities opened up by linking a printer to a good computer but Ibico have provided the main essentials at a price that more people can afford. Both companies have taken advantage of the downward trend in printer prices by opting for quality output at bargain prices. In the long term, it's the user that gets the benefits.

Sinclair User

QUALITY PRINT AT A LOW COST While the prices of dot matrix printers have been falling in recent years the price of daisywheel printers has remained fairly high, with only one at under £300. The Ibico LTR-1 is an 'impact band' printer which gives daisywheel quality print for only £169.95. The low price means that it has a limited number of features, but surprisingly it has both Centronics and RS232C inputs as standard. The printer is small, measuring 298mm by 63mm by 198mm, and is designed to take standard A4 sheets of paper. Tractor-fed paper can be used if the perforations are removed. There are no feed buttons provided, only a manual knob which, annoyingly, has to be pushed in and turned to feed the paper. You can only feed forwards. Few control codes are available. The printer uses a buffer to store one line before it is printed. Carriage return and line feed operate as normal except that if they are received in reverse order double space printing is performed. Backspace deletes the previous character in the buffer, which means that you cannot use underscore to underline text. Like a daisvwheel the printer is fairly slow. It operates at 12 characters per second, which is average for a daisywheel. Despite those limitations we had no problems driving it from both Tasword II and Quill or obtaining listings. The output is reminiscent to that from a portable typewriter and, apart from being uneven in places, was very good. If you are looking for a low cost daisywheel printer the LTR-1 represents value for money. For further details contact Saga Systems, [redacted].

Personal Computer News

Kenn Garroch

PRINTS OF THE REALM Finding the right printer for your computer can be as difficult as winding your way through a maze. But, there's hope on the horizon - simply consult Kenn Garroch's guide to what's what and for how much. Printers range from cheap thermal narrow-paper machines to large expensive daisy wheels. The in between ground is held by the dot matrix, Epson lookalike printers. There are also colour printers which range from the cheapest pen plotters to the ribbon and ink jet machines that produce high quality prints. The bottom end of the printer market is generally held by the thermal printers, and the pen plotters. Thermal printers need either special paper, available from many stationers, or carbon transfer ribbons such as those in the Brother range (EP22/44/HR5). The pen plotters use one of four coloured pens which move horizontally across the paper. The paper moves vertically allowing characters and graphics to be drawn on the paper. They tend to be slow and are generally limited to narrow (4.5in) paper. Dot matrix is the most common type of printer these days. A vertical line of needles presses an inked or carbon ribbon onto the paper. At the bottom of the range the capabilities are limited but usually include bit image graphics and a choice of character sets. At the top end, features such as proportional spacing, near letter quality (NLQ), buffers, and downloadable character sets are available. But you pay for the extra facilities. For the more serious users, the daisy wheel type of printer may be necessary. These use a spoked wheel with a letter on each spoke. The letters are stamped against a ribbon just like a typewriter. The main problems are inflexibility, as you are limited to the characters available on the wheel. They also tend to be slow, roughly 10-20cps, and very noisy, which irritates some people. INTERFACES A snag you may run across is the type of interface that connects the printer to your computer. The most common is the Centronics parallel connection. The other main type is the serial or RS232 interface. This is usually available either as an alternative to Centronics, or as a separate adaptor for more cash (denoted by the £ sign in the list below). When buying a printer, you will probably be spoilt for choice. The first thing is to decide what you need a printer for - letter quality, listings, graphics, colour, etc. Next, decide what you can pay, and see which printers are in your price range. Once you have a selection, think of what you may need the printer for in the future. This should narrow the choice down to one or two. At this point, you should scour the advertisements in the computer press for the company that offers the best deal for the printer you want. Now you have a printer that should last for years without any problems. In case of hitches, make sure the dealer you buy the printer from has some kind of backup and guarantee policy. THERMAL PRINTERS NAME: TC600 PRICE: £577.25 SPEED: 16cps INTERFACES: RS232 PRINT METHOD: Carbon ribbon/thermal PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Plots graphs, built-in keyboard and RAM, disk drive available. SUPPLIER: Jones Brother [redacted] NAME: HR5 PRICE: £180.85 SPEED: 16cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Carbon ribbon/thermal PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Battery powered 4xU2s, similar to EP-44 without keyboard. SUPPLIER: Jones Brother [redacted] NAME: EP22 PRICE: £169.95 SPEED: 16cps INTERFACES: RS232 PRINT METHOD: Carbon ribbon/thermal PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Battery powered 4xU2 SUPPLIER: Jones Brother [redacted] NAME: Epson P-40 PRICE: £109 SPEED: 10cps INTERFACES: Optional Centronics or RS232 PRINT METHOD: Thermal PAPER SIZE: 4.5in COMMENTS: Cheaper but paper is narrow SUPPLIER: Peripheral Hardware [redacted] DOT MATRIX PRINTERS NAME: Smith-Corona D200 PRICE: £483 SPEED: 160cps INTERFACES: RS232 and Centronics PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Includes NLQ, 2K internal buffer, IBM compatibility. SUPPLIER: Smith Corona dealers NAME: Walters WM-80 PRICE: £228.28 SPEED: 80cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Bog standard Epson lookalike. SUPPLIER: Walters Microsystems [redacted] NAME: Shinwa CPA-80 PRICE: £228.85 (Centronics), £251.85 (RS232) SPEED: 100cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Pretty well Epson compatible SUPPLIER: Micro-Peripherals [redacted] NAME: Cana PW1080A PRICE: £320 SPEED: 160cps draft/75cps NLQ INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Includes NLQ option. SUPPLIER: CJE Micros [redacted]/Maplin [redacted] NAME: Brothers M1009 PRICE: £199 SPEED: 60cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: A compact printer, almost completely Epson control code compatible. SUPPLIER: Jones Brother [redacted] NAME: Riteman Plus PRICE: £260 SPEED: 120cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Tractor fee mech available SUPPLIER: KODE [redacted] NAME: Smith Corona Fastex 80 PRICE: £224.25 SPEED: 80cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Tractor feed available. SUPPLIER: Smith-Corona dealers NAME: OKI Microline 80 PRICE: £229 SPEED: 80cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 9.5in SUPPLIER: X-DATA [redacted] NAME: Epson RX80 F/T PRICE: £328 SPEED: 100cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Taken as standard SUPPLIER: Epson dealers NAME: Mannesman Tally 80 PRICE: £299 SPEED: 80cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Mannesman Tally [redacted] NAME: Star Gemini 10X PRICE: £286 SPEED: 120cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in SUPPLIER: Keyaki [redacted] LETTER QUALITY PRINTERS NAME: IBICO LTR-1 PRICE: £175 SPEED: 12cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: Letters on cylindrical roller - a bit like a rubber golf ball. PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: Interfaces available for Commodore 64, and Spectrum at £29.95, and £39.95 respectively. SUPPLIER: IBICO [redacted] NAME: Silver Reed EXP500 PRICE: £378 SPEED: 18cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Daisy wheel PAPER SIZE: 10in SUPPLIER: C/WP Computers [redacted] NAME: Juki 6100 PRICE: £385.25 SPEED: 17cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Daisy wheel PAPER SIZE: 13in COMMENTS: Takes Triumph Adler wheels. SUPPLIER: Most printer dealers NAME: Smith Corona L1000 PRICE: £368 SPEED: 12cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Daisy wheel PAPER SIZE: 13in COMMENTS: Replacement for the TP1 SUPPLIER: Smith-Corona dealers NAME: Turbo-20 PRICE: £497 SPEED: 18cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Daisy wheel PAPER SIZE: 15in SUPPLIER: Office Efficiency Machines [redacted] COLOUR PRINTERS NAME: Seikosha GP700-A PRICE: £488 SPEED: 50cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: 7-colour ribbon dot matrix PAPER SIZE: 8.5in SUPPLIER: DRG Business Machines [redacted] NAME: Integrex Colour Jet PRICE: £654.35 SPEED: 40cps INTERFACES: Centronics/RS232(£) PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix ink jet PAPER SIZE: 8.5in COMMENTS: No tractor feed available; interface for viewdata system. SUPPLIER: Integrex [redacted] NAME: CGP 1154 PRICE: £149 SPEED: 12cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: Pen plotter PAPER SIZE: 4.5in COMMENTS: One of many 4-colour pen plotters, all the same design and roughly the same price. SUPPLIER: Tandy shops NAME: Tandy CGP-220 PRICE: £499 SPEED: 37cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: 7-colour ink jet PAPER SIZE: 8.5in SUPPLIER: Tandy dealers NAME: Canon PJ1080A PRICE: £497 SPEED: 37cps INTERFACES: Centronics PRINT METHOD: 7-colour ink jet PAPER SIZE: 8.5in SUPPLIER: Canon dealers, Keyaki [redacted] NAME: Commodore MPS-801 PRICE: £395.95 SPEED: 38cps INTERFACES: CBMIEEE PRINT METHOD: Dot matrix coloured ribbon PAPER SIZE: 8.5in SUPPLIER: Commodore [redacted]

A comparison of the speed and capabilities of thermal printers puts the HR5 well in front.

The Brother HR5.

The Brother M1009.

The Canon PW180A.

The Epson RX80 F/T.

The GP-700-A is good value, but the Integrex offers more features. Above, the Commodore MPS-801.

The Smith Corona D200.

The dot matrix market is competitive, and price is not always the best indication of what's best.

With letter quality printers, you get what you pay for.