Juki printers

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.

Personal Computer News

Geof Wheelwight

Ian Scales

John Lettice

PC MICROPEDIA VOL 13 PART 2 PERIPHERALS Your guide to microcomputing add-ons. PERIPHERALS BUYERS GUIDE Once you've bought your micro, you'll soon discover the purchase of that central piece of hardware wasn't even the half of it. You'll start learning about the capabilities of your chosen machine, and as you go you'll find you want to do a number of things that require add-ons. You may want to handle large quantities of data, for example, or you may just want to handle it faster, in which case you'll need a disk drive. And you'll want some hard copy output, so you'll need a printer. Not just any old printer either, because you may want to have a specific kind of printout. You're also likely to be having trouble negotiating the use of the domestic TV - so can you afford a monitor, and if so, how do you choose one? Once you've got it all, your micro may want to phone up its mates and tell them all about it, so what about a modem? What's available for your micro, and how do you choose the best? All this and more will be revealed in our peripherals buyers guide. ADD-ONS ADDED UP Microcomputers are not very useful without other pieces of equipment for them to control or be controlled by. In the world of computers these pieces of equipment are known as peripherals; a clumsy and unfortunate term but one which we're stuck with. Peripherals aren't just things which you add on as a luxury or afterthought as the term may imply. In a technical sense just about everything apart from the processor chip itself is a peripheral - the RAM memory is a peripheral, as is the keyboard, the various interfaces and the video circuitry. These features instruct or are instructed by the logic produced by the processor and the software. This section deals with what we will call add-ons. Add-ons are always peripherals, but they are peripherals of a special kind in that they are designed to be optional extras, hardware enhancements. They are the bits of equipment you are likely to want to buy once you have come to grips with Basic programming and are looking for new and interesting ways to use your machine. Add-ons are products such as printers, cassette tape systems, disk drives, monitors, speech synthesisers, graphic input devices and devices which enable communication over the telephone to another computer or receive information over the airways from a broadcasting database like Oracle or Ceefax. This Micropaedia will look at a range of off-the-shelf peripherals for a variety of machines and give you an idea of the sort of things you can buy, what you can use them to do and what you should look out for when you're deciding which item to purchase. In many cases an add-on will require an interface to enable it to communicate with the host computer. The two most common standard interfaces are the parallel Centronics interface and the serial RS232. Parallel interfaces send information a byte at a time down a ribbon cable (the bits which make bytes travel in rows like a line of cars driving side by side down a multi-lane roadway during rush-hour). The serial interface is rather like a one lane off-ramp going from our imaginary multi-lane road, it straightens our rows of bytes into a single line of bits and sends them off one at a time. The serial interface is a necessary prerequisite to communicating over a telephone line, though it is often used to send information to printers and other peripherals as well. A computer like the BBC Micro is well endowed with a host of interfaces to enable it to talk to disk drives, printers and different sorts of display units. However, in comparison with many of its competitors the BBC is an expensive micro. When you buy a less expensive micro like the ZX Spectrum, for instance, you'll find that it's cheap because most of these I/O (input/output) features have been left out of the design. To compensate, the cheaper machines often have an edge connector. This is really just an extension to the micro's bus (the parallel pathway taken by the data around the circuit board). With the provision of the edge connector, Sinclair Research was able to offer add-ons like the ZX printer, Interface 1 and Interface 2. But the problem with this approach is that the user is limited to add-ons which are specifically designed to be used with a particular computer. You can't (without expensive adaptions) use the ZX Printer with other computers, and you can't use just any old printer with the Spectrum. It wasn't long, therefore, before independent manufacturers were producing what are known as standard interfaces as add-ons for the Spectrum so that users could configure and use a wide range of standard add-ons, especially printers. But even hobbyist computers with interfaces can suffer from compatibility problems. Commodore owners, for instance, will be well aware that the interfaces on their machines are not industry standard ones, and they are therefore limited to buying printers and disk drives from Commodore. So it's not surprising that there are several interface adaption units now on the market that enable the Commodore interfaces to communicate with standard printers. Joysticks are becoming especially popular add-ons for most machines. Many computer manufacturers seem to have been caught napping, under-estimating the interest in action games. Providing the necessaries has often fallen on third-party manufacturers. The Spectrum, especially, has been deluged with various joysticks and interfaces to control them. Again, especially with the Spectrum, the problems concerning standards comes to the fore. Fortunately, Sinclair has now released its Interface 2 for the Spectrum. This unit, which plugs onto the edge connector, allows you to plug in standard joysticks, it also has a games cartridge slot for Sinclair's own range of games. The importance of Interface 2, is it will enforce a standard on software writers. Before Sinclair's release the different controllers available had different ways of controlling the screen action, so a game written with one set of joystick routines wouldn't necessarily run with another. Most of the games produced for machines without joysticks as standard were configured to use a combination of key depressions to control the action on-screen. So some of the joystick controllers on offer get you to configure them so they know which key is supposed to be depressed and send the program the character string it's looking for. On other machines the joystick controller is no problem. On the BBC, Atari, Commodore and so on there are joystick ports as standard. But users are not limited to simply using the joysticks on offer from the manufacturer as there are a bewildering variety of custom sticks available from the third-party people. Some joysticks use potentiometers instead of plain old contacts. This tends to give you a greater degree of precision. Some sticks have been designed to be hand-held, with the stick on top of a pistol grip handle and a trigger as the fire button. Others are table-top types, also with a pistol-grip but with a button on the top for the thumb to fire. Some games controllers aren't joysticks at all. The Apple, for instance, can be fitted with a track-ball device instead of a joystick. Communications is another popular area to expand your machine into. The costs of the devices necessary to hook yourself into the telephone network are coming down in price rapidly as chip manufacturers produce the wherewithal to do it on smaller and smaller slivers of silicon. What you normally need is an RS232 and a modem. The modem can be either directly or acoustically coupled. The attractions of the modern have increased recently with the establishment of Micronet, a specialist information provider on Prestel which gives the latest micro news and provides a large array of free software which can be downloaded by its subscribers. Whatever the sorts of add-ons you wish to acquire, the most important consideration is that of compatibility. As you can see from the run-down above, compatibility (or lack of it) is the thing which probably promotes the most nail-biting among users. This consideration applies most of all to storage. There have been some wonderful and innovative storage devices touted recently. Unfortunately, these are of much less use to the average punter if they are not widely supported by the people who produce the software. In many cases it will be impossible to move your existent games and commercial programs across to your new media as the programs will be protected. With add-ons, get assurances that they are going to do the job for which you require them before money changes hands. -- Interfacing is a crucial question for the micro owner. A cheap micro like the Spectrum is cheap partly because it doesn't have a range of interfaces built in. You can buy interfaces for it, both Centronics and RS232, but if you just have the basic machine the only printer you can connect it to is the ZX Printer, which is cheap, cheerful, and a shade illegible. With a BBC, on the other hand, you get RS232 and Centronics interfaces built in, so you can hook it up to an Epson, say, or the Shinwa CP80 quite easily. The same principle applies to other add-ons, such as joysticks, disk drives and monitors, so if you want to hook your micro up to a lot of things, and you have one of the machines that is short on interfacing, your first step is to get some. -- Printers probably offer the most diverse range of choices to people who want to do a spot of adding on. They can be divided roughly into three broad categories. The most popular type of printer is probably the dot matrix. This uses a column of tiny wires which punch through ribbon creating each character as a matrix of dots. This technology produces the best possible of all printer worlds, with fairly high-quality results when printing text, the possibility (with the right software) of doing graphical output and a reasonable speed and price to cap the package off. Dot matrix printers usually achieve at least 40 cps (characters per second), and more outlay will get one which can do up to 160 or more cps. Most hobbyists would probably find 40 to 80 cps quite adequate. Printers with this sort of speed and reasonable flexibility can now be bought for between £200 and £300. Although dot matrix text is eminently readable, it's not thought to be quite up to the standard of the traditional typewriter-type of output, which of course uses solid moulded characters stamped through a ribbon to create a precise character image. To cater for people who plan to use their printers mostly for turning out letters there is a category of printers called daisywheels. These are basically typewriters designed to be used by computers. Enough print arms to support the alphabet and various special symbols radiate from a central hub. The wheel is rotated back and forth so that the desired character appears under a hammer which then strikes the moulded character through a ribbon and imprints it on the paper. The assembly containing the wheel and hammer is drawn back and forth across the page as the paper is fed through the mechanism. Unlike dot matrix printers, which use a tractor mechanism to feed through continuous paper, the daisywheel is usually set up to accept single sheets. Because it's a very mechanical device it's also slower than a dot matrix when it's priced in a similar bracket. Money will buy you a fast daisy, but it is usually a lot of money. There are now a few daisies under £500, and these tend to plod along at about 12 to 15 cps - usually enough time to walk around the block while a reasonably sized piece of text is being printed out. Considering the noise a lot of them make, this might not be a bad idea. There is a third category of printers which we can call 'alternative technologies'. These are usually either electrostatic or thermal. As a rule, if you get rid of as many precision moving parts as possible you keep the price down. These printers often cost around £100 or less like Sinclair's ZX Printer, an electrostatic printer which selectively burns a special coated paper as it passes through. Tandy has just released the TP 10, a thermal printer, which achieves much the same result by applying heated elements to special paper. These printers usually work on narrow rolls of paper, and are targeted at users who only want to have a hard-copy of listings and dabble with a few graphics. There is no 'best of all worlds' in buying a printer. Without spending a gigantic amount of money you are going to lose out on either print quality, graphics ability or speed - it's very difficult to get all three together. The following examples are typical of what's available on the market. The different capabilities will give you an idea of what you should look for in the printer you require. -- The CP 80 should serve as a similar pointer to the dot matrix market. We think it's a particularly nice little printer and it is competitively priced. The first thing you notice about the CP 80 is that it is light and fairly small. The second thing you notice is that the paper is fed in by the tractors from the rear of the printer rather than dragged out once it's been printed. This seems to work without a hitch, and enables you to start a new lot of continuous paper without wasting a piece by feeding it into the tractor mechanism. This printer has both a tractor and normal typewriter-type rollers, so you can use single sheets of paper as well. There is the normal clutch of buttons and warning lights. The printer is capable of about 80 cps. Another interesting feature is its carbon film ribbon which is slightly more expensive than your normal dot matrix ribbons, but this drawback has been allowed for by the manufacturers. The penny pinchers among us are able to change the ribbon in the cartridge up to 4 times instead of throwing the cartridge away. This ribbon gives very sharp and dense text. The dip switches are inside the machine. Using these and the control codes you are able to do such things as choose between normal, enlarged, condensed, emphasised, double strike, subscript, superscript and underline type-styles. You can switch the character set to italics, and do bit image graphics superscripts, subscripts, alter line spacing in 216ths of an inch, change the form length and the line length and line spacing. -- When the Juki 6100 Daisywheel printer was released in May 1983, it caused as much of a stir in the industry as any printer is likely to cause. Here was a daisywheel with lots of nice features, high-quality print, and all for a price of just £399. Previously you would have been shelling out at least twice as much for a printer of similar quality. The Juki can provide you with a benchmark. You are unlikely to find anything much cheaper with the same features. If you look at more expensive daisies you can work out for yourself whether their features are worth the extra cost to you. The Juki uses standard Triumph Adler daisywheels and IBM ribbons, it's a plodder, not a racer, and churns along at about 17 cps, in doing this, however, it tends to make a high pitched whining noise which is minimised to some extent by lots of insulation on the interior casing - still, you can't have everything. The maximum paper width is 13 inches and this can be fed in sheet form or you can use continuous stationery if you're that way inclined. The pitch (that's the number of characters per inch) can be varied between 10, 12 and 15. You can buy a wide selection of wheels featuring different typefaces and different pitch sizes. The all-important dip switches (there are 10) control the automatic line feed, form length (it can be 11 or 12 inches) and the number of lines per inch (6 or 8). You can specify continuous or cut paper. In addition to the dip switches, of course, there is a big selection of control codes. They enable you, among other things, to backspace by one column, do an upward or downward paper feed and to insert sub or superscripts. You can do bold or shadow printing, set the left and right margins as well as the top and bottom and you can get the printer to print its extra symbols on the daisywheel. -- Storage is a vexing problem for the low-cost micros. By their very precise mechanical nature, magnetic storage devices must be priced at a level which usually puts them completely out of the scale with the micros at the bottom end of the market, it's difficult to justify linking up a full-scale disk system costing several hundred pounds to a £99 Spectrum, for instance. Yet cassette tape storage is so slow and inefficient, that there have been many attempts to find a middle course between the cost of a floppy disk system with all its random access and variable length file-handling capabilities and the out-of-depth domestic cassette tape recorder, which, after all, was designed to play analogue music tapes. Despite the problems, however, prices in the disk drive area are falling, due mostly to increased volume and more streamlined distribution methods. There are, after all, a lot of Dragons and BBCs out in the field and last year's computer buyers are often this year's disk drive purchasers. It is possible to buy single 40 track drives below £200 now, but the chances are that this particular technology is not going to get much cheaper in the near future. Disk drive buyers must pay careful attention to the details concerning compatibility with existing disk operating systems and disk interfaces. The point is that a disk drive is only really useful if it gives you access to a wealth of off-the-shelf disk-based software. Always seek assurance that the program you want to run will be formatted for the drives you are buying. And don't be too certain that you can save your existing tape-based games and programs to the disk. Many of these are protected by the program to make them unlistable so they can't be copied. What makes the floppy disk drives so expensive is the precision components necessary to rotate the disk at the correct speed and align it in the spindle at the correct angle. Then there is a stepper motor which must position the read/write head at exactly the right position over the disk as it spins. -- When it comes to alternatives, the most successful so far must be Sinclair's Microdrives. The Microdrives can be used by the Spectrum with the addition of the Sinclair Interface 1. Instead of a disk, the drives house an endless tape cartridge, so there's no stepper motor and no finicky alignment problems. The tape is wound right through in about 10 seconds and because it's wound off the middle of its spindle and simultaneously wound back on the outside it's ready to go through again immediately. Because of the speed of the data transfer (about 16 Kilobits per second) it can do a good job of simulating genuine random access. ie you can specify a file and the system will go through the tape reading all the information and keeping the relevant sectors in its memory. Unlike a cassette tape system it has an operating system which allows it to maintain variable length files. If you save a file and then save another one or two after it, you have no way of increasing the length of the first or second file without saving a new version on another tape. As with a disk, the Microdrive splits its media up into segments of 255 bytes and then splits up the file and writes them to as many of these segments as the length of the file requires. Then if you load the file and perhaps add more information to it, the operating system will simply save it to its former segments and any other free segments it can find on the tape. After you've been using the tape for some time loading, changing, resaving and deleting files, all the sectors of all the files will be scattered right over the length of the tape. It's to be hoped that the Microdrive will be the forerunner to other such devices for other computers. At the moment it is only being sold by Sinclair on a strict rotation basis to mail-order purchasers of the Spectrum, but it shouldn't be long before it's readily available to one and all. Once this happens it's almost inevitable that enterprising concerns will engineer interfaces so that other machines can also take advantage of its cheap price. -- The Hobbit was released earlier this year as a halfway house between disk and cassette for BBC users. It gains access to the BBC micro through the user port and uses Philips digital microcassettes to store data. Its operating system is housed on a ROM which goes into one of the free 'sideways' ROM sockets in the BBC. Once installed, the operation of the drive is completely under software control. Data is loaded at about 750 bytes per second - much faster than a domestic tape recorder, it has a full set of file handling commands and operates in much the same way as a very slow disk drive. -- Choosing a modem at the right price is becoming an easier proposition these days as the prices of the components which go into the things plummets for the manufacturers who put them together. Modem stands for MODulator/DEModulator, and its task is to act as the go-between for the digital computer and the analogue telephone system. A modem takes the digital pulses that race around a computer and converts them into modulated tones that can be sent down a telephone line. The digital pulses first have to be straightened out by an RS232 interface into a serial form (one bit at a time). If your computer has an RS232 interface it is a fairly straightforward task to put a communications system together. Most standard modems will plug straight in. If you haven't got any interfaces on your machine then the procedure is a little more problematic. The Spectrum, for instance, now offers two fairly reliable routes to the wonderful world of telephone communication. The addition of Sinclair's Interface 1 (when it becomes generally available) will enable you to directly connect the necessaries as Interface 1 has its own RS232 interface. Alternatively, Spectrum users can opt for the new VTX 5000 from Prism, which has built-in RS232 and software and plugs directly into the Spectrum's edge connector. For other machines there is rather more diversity. There are dozens of standard modems on the market to choose from. Modems sort themselves out into two broad categories. These are acoustically coupled modems and hardwired or directly coupled modems. As the name suggests the hardwired modem is plugged directly into the telephone network via a standard Telecom wall socket. The acoustically coupled modem attaches itself to the telephone's handset where a speaker in the coupler opposes the handset's mouthpiece and a microphone opposes the earpiece. The acoustic coupler has the advantage of being more portable than the hardwired modem and, up until recently, seemed to be slightly more popular because the prices of the directly-wired variety were higher. This was presumably because of the stiff regulations placed in the way of directly connected modems. (Telephone companies are always wary of allowing items running off the mains to be attached to their expensive networks. Think of the damage a short-circuit could do by sending 240 volts into the telephone system). Acoustic couplers can also suffer from background noise corrupting the data. Direct modems are often capable of dialing their own numbers and automatically receiving a call and accepting data. Terms you will encounter when buying a modem are likely to include half and full duplex. Full duplex describes modems which are capable of simultaneously sending and receiving data. Why, you may ask, should a modem want to do this, it acts as a check on the integrity of the data being received at the other end. The full duplex computer receiving the data is immediately sending it back again to check its validity. The sending and receiving is done at different frequencies so that the data doesn't get tangled up. Half duplex mode only sends data one way at a time. Because it is only using a single area on the bandwidth it is less likely to be the victim of interference. Most modems are now capable of both half and full duplex. Baud rate is another bit of obscure jargon guaranteed to confuse and frustrate the budding communicator; Baud is a measure, of the number of modulations per second (the modulations represent the binary code). It's important to know what the baud rates of your likely digital correspondents will be before you purchase your modem, as you can't always select a full range of transmission or receive speeds, especially with the cheaper products. Micronet for instance, a micro enthusiast's database on Prestel,operates at 1200 baud receive and 75 send (from the user's point of view). -- Prism Microproducts is at the forefront of the new generation of (mostly) hardwired modems. PCN recently reviewed its latest release, the VTX 5000, an all-in-one communications package for the edge connector of the Spectrum to enable it to hook up to Micronet. (Issue 30.) Prism's general purpose hardwired modem costs £89.95, and we'll look at this to give you an idea of some of the features you should expect to get for the price, now that Prism has set a new standard in value for money. Although it's been targeted at Prestel and Micronet, this is no ordinary Prestel modem, it does have the requisite 1200 receive/75 transmit baud rates for the service, but it also offers 1200 baud in half duplex, opening up the possibilities of micro-to-micro communication over the telephone system. We tested this one on a BBC using the standard Micronet terminal software and it performed faultlessly. Don't pay more than £89.95. -- Joysticks are a subject close to the hearts of many micro enthusiasts. It was (probably still is) widely predicted that action games would be a flash in the RAM phenomenon like the hoola hoop - a quick craze that will die out once users realise the joys of programming. Indeed this seems to have been the thinking behind the Sinclair computers. Both the ZX81 and Spectrum were released without any type of joystick facility. The idea was that the users would learn how to do Basic programming, and their widespread success seemed to bear this idea out. But it's probably true to say that the Spectrum and ZX81 sold despite their being stickless - because they were affordable while their games-playing competitors were out of reach. It wasn't long, in the Spectrum's case, before manufacturers produced joystick controllers. Sinclair Research didn't take too long to cotton on as well, and released the Interface 2 about three months ago - it's reported to be selling well. Most other micros have joystick facilities as standard. Those that don't, like the Spectrum, have at least one independent supplier of controllers. But the good news with joysticks is that once the controller has been sorted out, compatibility isn't too much of a problem. Add-on joysticks for the portless computers seem to have settled on the 9-way D-Plug joystick socket arrangement. Computers like the BBC and Dragon have their own separate plugs and sockets, but the computer manufacturers, for once, seem to have left the field open to the third-party manufacturers. At best they only make a token effort in providing their own joysticks which, if available, are usually fairly cheap and nasty. Sinclair hasn't even attempted to provide joysticks, just the controller with a D-socket so you can choose your own. It's pretty easy to tell a good, rugged, well constructed joystick from a flimsy, liable-to-fall-to-pieces one. Ruggedisation (as the computer industry likes to call anything that prevent kit from disintegrating at the slightest excuse ) is of prime importance when you're picking a joystick, especially if you're the excitable type and actually think you are repelling invaders. Here are three joysticks which illustrate three basic approaches to the problems of controlling screen objects in a precise manner. All three are very solidly constructed and should stand a lot of abuse. -- The Flight Link Joystick takes yet another approach with its potentiometer joystick. Instead of a mechanical assembly closing one or two of four contacts to return the appropriate character strings to the processor, the Flight Link has two potentiometers on a universal joint mechanism which sit at right angles to each other. The potentiometers fix the desired direction of movement by plotting an x/y co-ordinate according to the rotation of the potentiometers. To you or me, this means that there is no spring loading. Instead, the stick moves freely on its axis and stays where you leave it. The stick itself is very small and you are required to be dainty rather than brutish to make the best use of the system. Thumb and forefinger rather than clenched fist is the way to handle this one. You can keep it on the table or hold it in your hand, and it's ruggedly constructed so you can probably drop it a few times as well. Available from Flite Link Control [redacted]. -- Kempston's Competition Pro is a good, solid family saloon type of joystick. Nothing flash or innovative here, just attention to detail and precise control. The stick's 'throw' (the distance you have to move it to get things moving on screen ) is very short, and this means that its base is capable of supporting the assembly without you having to tie up your remaining hand to prevent it toppling over as you dash to the other side of the screen to zap an alien. This also makes it extremely responsive. Kempston claims the shaft is nylon covered steel, which sounds impressive. There's also a comfortable knob on top so you don't develop a permanent extension to your life line - often an unfortunate side-effect after extended playing with some of its angular competitors. The firing buttons are 'hair trigger' and the merest hint of push will set off whatever is supposed to be set off. The Kempston features a standard D-plug. Available from Kempston [redacted]. -- The Spectravision Quickshot changes the joystick recipe with a helicopter-style grip and a choice of fire buttons. Many people prefer this sort of grip to the more conventional Kempston type because it's easier to keep the whole assembly in the one position when you are playing. Damage is done on screen by either the thumb or one of the fingers of your free hand. The Quickshot also proudly features what is described as a contour groove to give your free hand better purchase around the auxiliary fire button on the base. If all this doesn't keep the thing steady, you can resort to using the suction caps on the four corners. Accuracy, again, is very good and the triggers are very responsive. Again the standard plug to suit Atari, Commodore, NEC and Spectrum (Interface 2). Available from most Atari and Commodore dealers. -- Speech synthesisers are just starting to graduate from being experimental whizz-bang gadgets, with which you can amaze and delight your friends, to everyday features. Not run-of-the-mill you understand, but at least useful aids in their own right - especially to enhance the realism of games, both the action and adventure types. They also appear regularly in educational-type products such as spelling aids. Up until recently it was left up to the users to program speech into their own programming creations, usually the user (listener) is given a couple of levels of entry into the system. At a basic level there is generally a set of tailor-made words in ROM which the user can just POKE into a program. These may include the letters of the alphabet and the numbers and perhaps a few Basic keywords. Some synthesisers feature a second level. Here you can actually phonetically concoct your own words by typing allaphones. Allaphones are alphabetical symbols which stand for the 64 (yes only 64) distinct sounds we make when we talk. By combining allaphones with suitable pauses you can laboriously put your own words together. It gets better with practice and not surprisingly, even if you don't learn anything about computers doing it you do gain an understanding of speech. The slightest millisecond pause makes all the difference between a word making sense or sounding foreign. -- The Namel Supertalker is a good all-rounder. It can make use of phonemes, another form of coding the human voice's composite sounds, and it also has its own built in 550-word vocabulary. It's also very versatile because, unlike many of the other products, it works through an RS232 interface and so can work with any micro which possesses RS232 output. The Supertalker has its own processor and RAM, so you can download a custom vocabulary and call up the words you want when you want them. Its sound comes from a built-in speaker driven by a small amplifier. Not the cheapest but certainly one of the best. -- The BBC Microcomputer, with all its extra nooks and crannies, can play host to a couple of ROM chips supplied by Acorn; which impersonate veteran newscaster Kenneth Kendall. No untidy black boxes for Acorn, Kenneth is tucked right out of sight and his voice comes through the BBC's built-in speaker. You can access 165 words provided in the PHROM (Phrase Read Only Memory). To make up your own words you have access to what Acorn calls compound words, made up by combining two or more words from the 165 word vocabulary. Silent periods can also be generated. You can write in assembly language straight to the processor, though this is a very tedious process and can use up a disproportionate amount of the already limited user RAM on the BBC, so most users will probably stick to the words provided. The sound is recognisably Kenneth Kendall, though he does sound a little muffled. -- For the micro that has everything, you could do worse than buy it its own little robot. The Zeaker Turtle measures just 5in by 5in by 2in, and not only can it move around, it also has an artistic bent - in fact drawing on the floor is its forte. The Zeaker can work with the BBC, Spectrum or ZX81; the latter through special adaptions for the edge connector. You control it through a high-level language called Snail Logo. This gives you commands like Forward, Left, Right, Pen up, Pen down and soon on, and all this can be looped and repeated. It's very simple, but it is fun to use and the beauty of it is that it provides the budding programmer with very positive and immediate feedback. You are actually getting something concrete happening through you own programming efforts. The Zeaker can also turn out reasonable graphics - nothing like a plotter of course, but with care the results can be quite pleasing. Contact Colne Robotics [redacted]. -- The Beebplotter is not what it sounds - it is for the BBC, but it's not a plotter - it can more accurately be described as a tracer. It plots graphics onto the screen. It can work as a light pen, translating your free-hand sketches to the computer's memory. But it beats the light pen because it's also capable of tracing outline. If your drawing's like mine you'd rather lift someone else's artistic efforts in any case. It's ideal for copying maps or diagrams. Beebplotter can be used in any of the BBC's graphics modes and it plugs into the analogue port. It supports a number of commands to do things like fill enclosed spaces with a specified colour. The results can be dumped to a Seikosha or Epson printer and your efforts can obviously be saved to disk or tape. Contact Watford Electronics [redacted]. -- What about a system that accepts voice commands for the Apple II? VIM (Voice Input Module) represents a major advance in packaging what was previously mainframe experimental technique on a tiny card at a relatively tiny price (£899 inc VAT). The card disappears into the Apple and the only obvious bit of hardware is a microphone. You load up the requisite software and are ready to input. This is really a very sophisticated device as it scans the sound waves we offer it as input at several frequencies and samples them at specific points in time. You have to build up your own vocabulary of course, so that the thing knows what you're talking about. You type in a word and the system asks you to make the audio equivalent several times. Then it can get a good idea of how you are likely to say it. -- Micropaedia Editor: Geof Wheelwright Contributors: Ian Scales, John Lettice Design: Nigel Wingrove NEXT WEEK To finish off our series of buyer's guides we will be looking at a range of 'popular software' - otherwise known as games. Just in time for the Christmas rush, you can choose your stocking fillers from our selection of games for the Spectrum, Dragon, BBC, Oric, ZX81, Vic-20 and Atari.

Chatterbox starts from a slightly different premise from most units, in that it can be used for a number of machines with slight modification.

Mannesman Tally printers tend to be more upmarket, but the company does also sell the MT80, which is aimed more at the Epson end of the market.

Seikosha is best know in the hobbyist market for its low-cost printers. Print quality isn't as easy on the eye as more expensive models, but they're still excellent value.

The Currah Microspeech sells for £30, and while it's a reasonable little speech synthesiser in a crowded market, the really interesting things about it is that Currah is trying to get software manufacturers to incorporate its facilities into their games.

The Juki 6100 was something of an advance for daisywheel printers when it came out in the early Summer. At around £450 it brings the cost of letter quality daisywheel printers within striking distance of dot matrix. It's fairly good for the price, and importantly for daisywheel printers, is relatively quiet. Overall it's a highly creditable debut in the printer market for Juki.

The Prism VTX5000 modem for the Spectrum (top) is designed to hook the Spectrum up to Micronet 800. It's important because it's a cheap, hardwired modem that gives a mass market machine easy - and comprehenslble - access to the outside world in the form of Micronet and Prestel. Modems in general tend to be less accessible than this, but the idea is really that you can get your micro to talk to other micros over the phone.

Today when you say printer, you're very likely to be saying Epson. The Epson matrix printers are reliable workhorses in many an office and home.

Personal Computer News

Ian Scales

WHEELS REVEALED If you're in a spin over printers, Ian Scales will straighten you out with the lowdown on daisywheels. Daisywheel printers are designed to copy the output of good-quality typewriters. This is especially important in business correspondence where dot-matrix output, though readable, has yet to achieve the acceptance of the typewriter. People are used to typewriter-style text while its dot-matrix counterparts are more commonly associated with electricity bills and bank statements. Whatever the reasons, daisywheel printers are still an important segment of the computer peripherals market, and they're likely to be with us for some years yet. Far from fading out, there have been a couple of notable daisywheel printer releases over the past couple of months which have broken new price/performance ground. Manufacturers, it seems, are tailoring the products to be more price-compatible with the computers they serve. After all, who wants to buy a computer for a few hundred pounds and then have to spend more than twice as much on a printer to go with it. There are now a number of high-quality daisywheel printers around £500, four of which have recently featured in PCN Peripherals Pro-Tests. Here we round up the Juki, Smith Corona, Triumph Adler and Brother HR 15 printers and compare their features side by side. MECHANICS A daisywheel printer stamps a fully-formed character shape through a ribbon and onto paper in the same manner as a typewriter. Instead of using individual print arms, however, all the characters are on a single wheel made up of small print arms radiating from the hub - giving it the appearance (if you have enough imagination) of a daisy. The printer continually rotates the wheel back or forth. When the required letter arrives at the 12 o'clock position it is quickly struck through to the paper by a small hammer mechanism. The entire assembly (hammer and wheel) moves across the length of the paper as opposed to the carriage moving as in a conventional typewriter. In many ways, the cost involved in manufacturing a daisywheel printer as opposed to a dot matrix, reflects the disadvantages of trying to merge an old concept with a new technology. Not only does a daisywheel printer tend to cost more because of its reliance on a multiplicity of precise mechanical components, but it is also slow and inherently inflexible. Unlike alternative methods of getting marks on paper you are generally limited to a set number of characters. To change character sets you have to change daisywheels. It also means that you can't generate graphics or easily change typestyles or sizes within a page. All this means little if you want a printer to turn out letters and high-quality documents. But it's definitely worth bearing in mind if you can see yourself wanting to branch out to other applications. Most daisywheels communicate with their host computers through a Centronics parallel interface. If your computer's I/O limits you to, say, an RS232 serial interface it is worth bearing in mind that having to switch interfaces on either the printer or the computer is likely to cost extra. SPEED The thing to consider is the volume of text you are likely to want to put through in a day, or, perhaps more importantly, how quickly you require each document to be printed. The less costly daisywheel printers achieve their economy at the expense of speed - they are very slow. For applications which require a large volume of output but have a long lead-time - you know what you want to print and when you need it by (form letters for instance) - you only require to be well organised. Here a sheet feeder can pay dividends. If you want to produce one-off letters in a reasonably short space of time it can be a remarkably irritating procedure, especially if you want to work on the computer to do something else, in this situation a spooler can be a valuable aid. The spooler acts like a large buffer. The computer quickly down-loads the contents to the spooler which then feeds the text to the printer as it needs it. This enables you to get back on the computer again while your text is printing out. The trend in computer products generally is for the cost of micro-circuitry to fall dramatically in relation to the more static cost of mechanically-based components. Spoolers have therefore become viable for a slow daisywheel, especially as the alternative method of getting your computer to spend less time looking after the printer is to buy a faster printer - costing at present two to three times as much. The ease with which you can feed in the paper (assuming you aren't going to buy a mechanical sheet feeder) has a direct bearing on its speed. It's also important that it feeds in straight first time. If feeding in a sheet usually involves a manual realignment because the press-button 'top of form' function feeds it in crookedly then there's not much point having one in the first place. The same applies to the ease with which you can replace the ribbon and daisywheels. Noise is another thing to watch out for. Daisywheel printers vary considerably from brand to brand in the racket they make. Sound can be generated from the drive method of the printing mechanism in addition to the expected tap-tapping from the daisywheel itself. As these printers are so slow it's worth remembering that you are likely to have to put up with extended periods of (hopefully) background noise. FLEXIBILITY The printer's flexibility is another important criteria. First make sure you can get a full range of daisywheels. It is useful to have a varying number of pitch options. The pitch relates to the number of characters per line. By combining different-sized characters and pitches it is remarkable the different textual effects you can create. A normal range of pitches could offer you 10, 12 and 15 (characters per inch). Have a good look at the manual. The way the printer is controlled to set such things as page length, pause between pages and so on is normally set up by a set of 'dip switches'. These are a row of small on/off switches - configuring the switches to combinations of on or off enables you to permanently set the printer to work the way you require it. The directions for setting the dip switches should be clearly explained in the user manual. A second level of control commands is usually available to set such features as underlining, shadow or bold printing. The commands to set these features into the text often have to be sent down from the computer as 'control characters'. Make sure the printer has all the features you are likely to require. Last but not least, pay special attention to the level of support offered from the dealer. Can it be fixed quickly if it breaks down? Printers are as prone to a good old fashioned breakdown as any mechanical device. TRIUMPH ADLER TRD 170S PRODUCT: Triumph Adler TRD 170S daisywheel printer PRICE: £725 plus VAT INTERFACES: Choice of Centronics, Qume parallel, RS232 and Diablox emulation. EXTRAS: Optional tractor £125 plus VAT, mechanical sheet feed £595 plus VAT DISTRIBUTOR: Triumph Adler [redacted] The Triumph Adler TRD 170S comes at the top of this round-up price-wise. A few months ago a £723 plus VAT daisywheel was a pretty good buy, but now there are other similar-featured printers on the market. The TRD is rated at 16 cps. It has the bonus of a wide range of daisywheels available and a wide range of pitches which can be chosen by the user. The ribbons are available in fabric, carbon or multistrike carbon. As an added bonus the ribbon carrier has a lever to set the amount of ribbon transport to suit the pitch of the wheel being used. Paper loading is easy and accurate and there is little noise generated by the printer and its fan. On the minus side the control codes offered are sparse and there is a tendency for the first character on the line in 'double-strike' mode to be off-centre. BROTHER HR15 PRODUCT: Brother HR15 daisywheel printer PRICE: £540 plus VAT, Tractor feed £80 plus VAT INTERFACES: RS232 and Centronics parallel DISTRIBUTOR: Thame Systems [redacted] The Brother HR-15 is a very solid, 'ownable' sort of printer. At £540 plus VAT it offers a bumper package of features in exchange fora very slow speed of 11 cps. To compensate for this it has a 2K buffer (expandable to 5K) and an automatic 'copy' function so you can leave it to churn out multiple copies while you use the computer to do something else. It has a full range of control functions available through a full set of dip switches (easily accessible at the rear of the machine) and a comprehensive range of control codes. Printing features include proportional spacing, auto-underline, shadow or, red print. Parallel Centronics and RS232 interfaces are both standard and the printer is very quiet. There is also a wide range of wheels in 10, 12 or 15 pitch. The ribbon and wheels are very easy to change. The HR 15 has the added bonus of a sheet feeder at the relatively low price of £220 plus VAT. SMITH CORONA TP1 PRODUCT: Smith Corona TP1 daisywheel printer INTERFACE: Centronics or RS232 Speed 12 cps PRICE: £485 plus VAT CONTACT: Smith Corona [redacted] The Smith Corona TP1 is a 'no frills' model costing £485 plus VAT. It comes with either Centronics or RS232 interfaces and the idea of 'either/or' is continued in pitch choice. You must specify whether you want a 10 or 12 pitch model. Friction feed comes as standard and there is a friction operated tractor upgrade available. Cost-cutting exercises include the elimination of dip switches. There is a single switch to set the printer into 'top of form' mode or 'normal' mode. Line spacing is set with a lever, like a typewriter. Changing the ribbon and print wheels are simple exercises and the manual is clear and concise. This printer is only capable of 12 cps but it is not bidirectional or logic seeking and because the print-head transport uses a rack and pinion system it is very noisy. The ribbons and wheels, however, are cheap: at £2 and £7.50 respectively. JUKI 6100 PRODUCT: Juki 6100 daisywheel printer INTERFACE: Centronics parallel PRICE: £399 plus VAT MANUFACTURER: Juki DISTRIBUTOR: Microperipherals [redacted] The Juki represents the major price breakthrough with its retail price of £399 plus VAT. On price/performance considerations it would appear to be the best buy in the round-up. With a print speed of 17 cps it operates in 10, 12 or 15 pitch modes, with an added proportional spacing option. There is a useful 2K buffer which enables you to down load about 2 pages of text and use the computer for something else. The ribbon is an IBM type and can be a bit mucky to install, although for economy it uses top, middle and bottom in turn. There is a wide range of control options available, both from a 10 dip switch panel and a comprehensive number of control codes. On the minus side however, the manual is a little confusing in places and the mechanism produces a rather irritating whining noise, Juki as a company is a newcomer to the UK market. It would therefore be wise to seek assurances on spare parts availability. QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK It's always useful to have the questions ready to fire at the dealer before you get, your printer home and discover them for yourself. Compatibility: If the interface isn't the same as the one on the computer get an assurance on how much money a change involves. The same applies to your word processing package: will it work without an endless amount of fiddling about with control codes? Speed: Try and determine the 'real' speed of the printer. If the machine can run in bi-directional mode, this increases the speed considerably; as does logic seeking where the printer doesn't waste its time tracking over white space at the end of a short line of text. Cost: If you are likely to need a sheet feeder, get an assurance on price and availability. Consumables are also an important factor. Do a calculation on ribbon life and cost and print wheel cost and include it in the equation - all this can add up. If you don't regard yourself as a business, remember about VAT. Noise: Remember you have to live with it. Carriage width: If you're likely to need wide output make sure the carriage is wide enough. If you don't, don't pay for features you won't use. Flexibility: Ask to see the range of print wheels. Remember you will probably want different sizes as well as styles. Documentation: This is more important than it sounds. There is nothing more frustrating than a manual that doesn't make any sense. Have a good pore through it in the showroom.

Personal Computer News

Barry Miles

ITEM: Juki 6100 Daisywheel printer MANUFACTURER: Juki PRICE: £399 plus VAT INTERFACE: Centronics Parallel CONTACT: Microperipherals [redacted] PRINT AT A LOW PRICE Daisywheel prices cut? Barry Miles sees how Japan's new entry, the Juki has pruned them. The Juki 6100 is a low-cost daisywheel printer from Japan. It uses Triumph Adler daisywheels, IBM ribbons, and Diablo 630 software - the sincerest form of flattery is imitation. It is clearly designed to bring daisywheel print quality into the hands of the sort of user who, for reasons of cost, could previously think only in terms of dot matrix. It's a major breakthrough at £399, and the Japanese have chosen the UK as the first country in which to set up a dealership. Clearly they take their responsibilities very seriously. Juki sent two engineers from Tokyo to photograph the entire first consignment, and meticulously checked every single printer after it had arrived in this country. I spoke to one of the engineers, who told me that this involved 100 printers. Juki employs 10,000 people in Japan, and has been making computer peripherals and typewriters for 45 years. In addition to making its own-brand machines, the company manufactures the Olivetti Praxis. GETTING STARTED The machine comes well protected, with lots of internal packing to be removed. There is even an unpacking schedule provided, although it's a little ambiguous because the translation from Japanese is less than perfect. The machine is housed in a fairly tough off-white plastic case, and the control panel is easy to read. It has touch-sensitive switches in orange, mauve and blue. These control reset, pause, and Form feed. The reset switch is used to release the printer from a check or error status. The pause button takes the printer off-line temporarily, until the reset switch is set. In addition, a sliding switch controls pitch. This may be 10, 12, 15, or proportional spacing. You may vary this in software, not hardware, once the printer has been switched on. Lights indicate 'power on', 'ready' and 'check' respectively. This is a little unconventional.but reference to the comprehensive manual tells you exactly what these mean. The 'ready' light will blink if errors relating to data transfer occur. The manual disconcertingly suggests that in addition to parity errors, or buffer overflow errors, 'Flamming errors' may cause problems. Well, yes, I imagine they would! The 'check' light comes on to warn you that ribbon or paper has run out: if it blinks at you, this is to indicate an error status. When you have cleared the error, you can print the contents of the 2K buffer, by pressing reset. The 2K buffer comes as standard. Strangely enough, space has been left on the printed circuit board for three more RAM chips to be soldered in - the holes are there, but no sockets! Ship for a hap'orth of tar, I feel. The lid lifts up and off to gain access to the daisywheel, which drops into place, and is secured by the use of a single lever. The IBM-type ribbon is relatively easy to insert, although it is a slightly mucky task. The ribbon is very wide, and sure enough, when printing starts, you find that it uses the top, middle and bottom, of the ribbon in turn. Commendable economy, particularly as the ribbons are very cheap. With the lid off you notice that there is a lot of sound-proofing foam stuck around and you begin to wonder why. The manual boasts of an induction motor, and says this gives a simpler mechanism, and a more accurate printing position. I thought simplicity would give greater quietness, but now I am not so sure. The manual, in a rather confusing way, describes the use of the bail lever to wind the paper round the fifth line. It does not deliver the paper into precisely the right alignment every time, and only has the aid of a single plastic paper guide, and two rubber rollers on the platen. And there's another snag - it won't work with the top on the printer! As is usually the case, the lever concerned protrudes through a slot on the top of the printer's case. But the Juki's slot isn't long enough. The trouble appears to be that the lever, being plastic, slender and long, bends so much that it cannot complete its travel before hitting the end stop, there doesn't seem to be any easy way of adjusting it either. I can only hope that the sample I had wasn't typical. But on the other hand, what did those engineers do if they didn't find this fault? This was particularly disappointing, as much of the design has been thought out with considerable care. There is a 10, 12, and 15 pitch calibration on the transparent lid of the machine. But just a moment - there is something a little strange here: the maximum number of columns is only 110 if you are using 10 pitch. Reference the manual confirms my fears: the maximum paper width is only 13in. On the face of it, this doesn't matter much - after all, who needs great widths? Many people won't find this a problem. But the daily proliferation of spreadsheets means that more and more people are going to be wanting to print out columns of figures. The Triumph Adler range of print wheels includes some very attractive 15 pitch versions, and I'd rather have a maximum of 198 columns than 165, which is all that the Juki can offer. Ten dip switches are available. They're reasonably accessible by raising the clip-on part of the top of the body. These control automatic linefeed when carriage return is sent; impression level, for when you are using multistrike ribbons; selection of international character set; form length; 11in or 12in line spacing, 6 per inch or 8 per inch, and continuous or cut paper - giving a pause to change sheet (pressing the reset switch sets printing going again). Self-testing of the machine is more complete than in some cases. The buffer is checked first, and then. If you have the serial interface option fitted, that is checked next. Finally the character set is printed out UP AND RUNNING There were no particular problems in running the printer, although I did experience difficulty in using it with the word processors I have. I couldn't get to the bottom of this, but it appears that the handshaking may be somewhat out of the ordinary in its reaction with my hardware. Certainly, the print quality is superb, and the wide range of daisywheels available gives a good choice to the customer. Unfortunately the changing of daisywheels proved troublesome in the extreme. The manual was no great help either. The problem is that the carrier bolt, which locates into the slot in the daisywheel in order that the motor can drive it round, proved extremely unwilling to engage. This was aggravated by the fact that the bolt doesn't always stop at the same point, even on reset. You would normally expect the bolt to stop at top dead centre, but it did not. This would matter to you only if you change daisywheels frequently, and I suspect that most users will buy only one, or if they buy more, will not bother to 'change them often. FEATURES The number of control codes available is outstanding, and the description in the manual is quite adequate for you to be able to get full value out of them. The introduction runs like this: 'The control codes come in special control codes based on escape codes and those control codes shown in ASCII table.' But once you're past that you can make progress. You can backspace by one column, or 1/60in in graphics mode. Horizontal and vertical tabulation are both possible, as are upwards line feeds, and half line feeds in both directions for subscripts and superscripts. The left and right margins may be set, as can the top and bottom. The printer may be completely reset from software. The extra symbols on the daisywheels may be accessed by escape sequences. Automatic backward print may be set and reset at will, and you can reset after a remote error. Word-processing functions are numerous. You can set up bold or shadow printing, and also set an automatic underline. You can also switch proportional spacing on and off from software. It is possible to slow down the printer with an escape sequence which allows more time for the carriage to settle before printing. This is no doubt to enhance precision, though there seems to be little need for it. You can define the line feed in multiples of 1/48in, and you can decide the character spacing in 1/120th increments. This enables graphics to be printed and lets you close-up letters if you are trying to cram them in. You can turn off the bi-directional printing if you wish. The manual specifies how to send these commands, but it falls short of giving examples in one of the dialects of Basic. One thing Juki has been able to do away with is the fan for cooling. This is attractive, because often you print intermittently, and silence in between is good. The printing itself is pretty quiet, but the reason for all the foam is fairly obvious: there is a continuous high pitched whine all the time the printer is printing. This is fairly distracting, and quite unpleasant, although I think most users could learn to live with it. The speed of printing is as close to the rated 17 cps as are other printers to their rated speeds. If the paper loading lever worked, the print speed would be less important, of course. VERDICT This is a very interesting entry into the market, and is rather like the Japanese entry into the car market - lots of facilities for your money, but a few design deficiencies into the bargain. There is no doubt that the Juki competes extremely well on price/performance ratio. The machine has a range of facilities that would do justice to a much more expensive machine. There are flaws in it, but not sufficient to put off the budget-conscious consumer. I'm told Juki policy is to produce a new model each year. After this promising debut, the next one will be worth looking out for.

A selection of the typefaces available on the Juki 6100. You can also set up bold and shadow printing, as well as automatic underlining. A wide range of daisywheels is available for the printer.

The Juki 6100 is a major advance for daisywheel printers, bringing high-cost facilities down to the level where daisywheel can become a real competitor to dot matrix. It is versatile, with a wide range of functions, but although Juki places much emphasis on quality-control, there are a few rough edges.

This pie chart represents a rough guide to what we feel is the trade-off between price and capabilities on the Juki 6100, as determined by the PCN Peripheral Pro-Test. It's based on the premise that a high capability in one direction will cause either a low capability in another or a higher price. For this reason 'economy' is a negative way of expressing price -the cheaper the printer the bigger the economy segment. If a printer has lots of everything it will close the price/performance gap - obviously a wide gap doesn't represent a good buy, 30 degree is good and none is excellent.