Star Micronics printers

Your Sinclair

Phil South

RAGE HARD! This month, Phil South blips the lid off a pair of fancy colour printers for the Spectrum, and asks "Is this the end of black and white printing as we know it?" There comes a time in every young man's life when his thoughts turn to a certain subject. Look. I don't mean taking a swan dive down the front of Vixen's leopard skins! I'm talking about pnnters. Yes, printers, those little dot matrix jobbies that go prrrrrt prrrrrrrt prrrrrrrrt and spit out prints of your screens or word processing documents. You have no doubt been thinking about getting one of these items for a while, since that old ZX printer of yours choked out its last shred of aluminium foil and died. But before you shed your wedge for a normal printer, let me draw your attention to a phenomenon which might have escaped your notice, that of colour printers. Yes, really. And it just so happens that two such devices have appeared on my desk. The phenomena of colour printers is a relatively new one, due to the problem of how do you actually get a ribbon which will print boldly and cleanly enough not to look muddy when you mix colours? As the technology to make printers has become cheaper, we are now faced with two colour printers which you can buy for about £200. Which is why you and I can afford to be interested, now. So what are the benefits of these exotic and colourful things, and what will it cost you to use one? STAR LC-10 Star Micronics has been building a bit of a reputation in the last year for producing in-tech, state of the art printers. Its speciality is making compact near letter quality jobs with smooth, Star Trek cases, and all the buttons you need to change styles and stuff on the front panel. The LC-10 is the first of its line to have colour capability, having as it does a nifty four colour ribbon with the colours black, cyan, magenta and yellow all running parallel along the ribbon. The ribbon is continuous, which means that when you get to the end of the ribbon it starts again. The drag about this is that you only know when you're running out of ink when the print gets so faint you can't read it. The printer itself is very compact, being about 15" x 11" x 4", which presents a very slim line on the old desk. The colour ribbon snaps into the head very easily and can be changed with very little in the way of tools. The little paper hatch on the back of the thing, is sculptured to the case, but just a tiny tweak on the appropriate flange and it'll pop open revealing the innards. The tractors which feed the paper in are oddly placed underneath the back of the roller. This is to facilitate 'paper parking'. This means that you can print on tractor feed paper, park it, print on a single sheet, then re-thread the tractor paper, all automatically without touching the tractors or unrolling the paper. All the moving knobs and buttons are very positive and do the job with style. The control panel activates all the functions, and all the membrane buttons bleep, so you know that you've made contact. The printer I received was via that young, thrusting company Miles Gordon Technology, the firm that brought you the Plus D and DisCiple disk interfaces. MGT is considering the benefits of marketing the device, but as it's still shopping around, I suggest you don't bell them up to buy one. (Check the ads in a mag like Computer Shopper, plug, plug, for the best price and from whom you ought to buy it.) The reason I'm telling you this, besides getting in a plug for my favourite mag, is that along with the printer, Bruce Gordon also enclosed a disk with a special screen dumping program for doing colour screen dumps. This used the +D's printer interface and worked really well. But screendumps take a lot out of a ribbon and very soon the colours were looking a bit muddy, on account of a lot of white from the paper. But nevertheless, the actual quality of the individual pixels was very good, and there's a reason for this. The LC-10 is a very hi-res printer, and being a 9 pin job, it produces very sharp printouts. This brings me to the quality of its print. The text is nothing less than superb, and as well as having no less than forty two different text modes, including three different NLQ fonts plus italic, condensed, elite and pica spacing, it also has the mega-sophisticated proportional spacing. (Yes, the combinations of those add up to forty two! Ed) And this is, in the end, where the LC-10 wins out over the Okimate 20. The quality of the print, especially with text is much clearer and better, and mechanically it looks more reliable and workmanlike. For sophisticated business and technical presentation, it's the best you'll get under £500. But if you want something more creative and graphically orientated, then the slightly blurred but bolder print of the Oki wins out. OKIMATE 20 The Okimate 20 is an entirely different animal. It's what you'd call a thermal transfer printer, which means that instead of striking its impression on the paper through an inky ribbon with tiny pins, like the Star LC-10, it uses a plate with a matrix of hot spots on the face, to melt the waxy ink from a celluloid tape onto special paper The paper isn't that special, 'cos you can use ordinary paper, if you want. But it likes slightly smoother paper than normal, so you'd best use the stuff they provide, if you want a really good quality print. You can even use NO ribbon, if you shove some thermal paper into it! The printer is much smaller, with a much tackier feel to it. It might be small in size, 13" x 7.5" x 2.36", but it is quite heavy, weighing almost two thirds as much as the LC-10. All the things like the paper grips and hatches have been kept to a minimum, with as many parts being dual purpose and the only method of actually getting inside it being with the aid of a screwdriver. There is an interface stuck in the side, into which you prod the lead from your Speccy. You can change these from parallel to serial, depending on whether you're using a Kempston interface or the RS232 port from the Interface 1. (It's a good idea to state which of these you want when you buy.) The paper guides and tractors are just clips, and there isn't much in the way of the usual bail (the thing which holds the paper flat against the roller, for your info), just a couple of little rollers on the edge of the paper cutter. As for print quality, the Oki loses out by being thermal transfer, making the output darker than the Star, but more blobby. The waxy ink gives it stronger blacks and more saturated colours, but at the expense of definition. It compensates for this by having 24 'pins'. And it has to be said it does give the better colour screendumps of the two printers. I did have a problem on the printer I reviewed, which I think stemmed from the ribbon. If you check out the comparative screendump, you'll see the paper showing through the print in a bit line down the middle. At first I thought it was a greasy smudge on the paper, but I turned a piece of paper around and it still happened in the same place, so it must have been a dodgy ribbon. But the print around the aberration was excellently solid. I'm sure that with a functional ribbon, the result would have been first class. Text quality is another thing. The way the print is made, is almost exactly the same as those Canon Typestar or Brother typewriters, if perhaps a little chunkier. But you can generate listings of your programs, and write letters with good results. Generally speaking it's a better move to use the Oki if your speciality is graphics. And if you're a bit pushed for space on your worktop, it's an excellent option. It may look a bit cheap, but it's got a heart of gold... and blue, and red... and purple…

FEATURES LC-10 Pins: 9 Speed (NLQ): 36 cps Speed (draft): 144 cps Printer Type: Impact Dot Matrix Size (in inches): 15 x 11 x 4 Weight: 4.7kg Ribbon Price 4(approx): £4.00 Price: £260.00 OKI 20 Pins: 24 Speed (NLQ): 40 cps Speed (draft): 80 cps Printer Type: Thermal Dot Matrix Size (in inches): 13 x 7.5 x 2.36 Weight: 2.8kg Ribbon Price (approx): £8.00 Price: £198.95

Your Computer

Star £259 upwards Say the word "printer" to the average home computer user, and the chances are he'll think of Epson, for so long the dominant force in the printer market. With this new range of printers, Star hope to make some kind of inroad into this market. The range consists of three dot matrix printers aimed at the home user; the SG10 at £259, the SD10 at £389 and the SG15 also at £389. They are either Epson or IBM compatible, and offer an attractive near letter quality font and a removable tractor unit. The DIP switches for selecting character sets etc. are easy to get at, usually on the left hand side, a major improvement over Epson's hiding them away inside. In the software, Star have come up with a neat idea, you can define a printer macro, once you define a series of often used commands, you can execute them by just sending the macro command. Perhaps this might have been more useful if several macros could have been defined. The SG and SD10 printers are both eighty columns with speeds of 120 and 160 cps respectively and 2k (just over half a page) buffers as standard, expandable to 6k. The SG15 is 136 columns, at 120 cps and has a 16k buffer as standard. The SD10 uses a ribbon cartridge, the SG's, typewriter style ribbons. So how do they compare'" Well, in use, they seem rugged and reliable. Noise levels were reasonable, the paper feed reliable and precise. The only slight quibbles are that the paper guides are a bit clumsy and the paper tear off is a long way from the print head, which means after doing a form feed after printing your document, you've still got to move the paper by hand before tearing it off. Certainly anyone looking at a printer in this sort of price range should carefully consider this bunch.

Star printers.

Personal Computer News

Barry Miles

MACHINE: Star DP 510 dot matrix printer PRICE: £289 plus VAT SPEED: 100CPS INTERFACES: Centronics Parallel, RS232 C Serial CONTACT: Micro Peripherals [redacted] REACH FOR THE STAR 510 PRINTER Can you get a full-featured dot-matrix printer for £289. Barry Miles tries switching on a Star. The Star 510 is yet another contender in the growing low-priced but full-featured printer market. The idea here is to sacrifice print quality for print flexibility and a range of feed methods so that the price can stay down. The Star is a dot matrix printer which can operate at 100cps. Its 9 by 9 matrix gives good characters and the wide variety of typestyles and pitch makes it suitable for many applications. PRESENTATION It weighs 7kg and has a solid feel - its plastic case is sturdy and quite pleasant in appearance. The packaging was adequate - the only problem is that your attention isn't drawn to the transit screws until some way into the manual. Getting started is simple enough and the manual adequately explains how to put the various parts together. This is important because the printer has three types of paper feed, which is most unusual. You are supplied with all the fittings for tractor feed, continuous paper roll, or separate sheets. This gives the user great flexibility and the paper roll is made easy to use by the good tear-off facility on the cover. The cover has been well thought out - it is easily removed when not wanted but stays firmly in place when it is, significantly reducing the noise level. There are warning lights on the right hand panel, which tell you whether the printer is on-line, ready or powered up, and whether the paper is in place. These lights would be more informative if their labels were in colour instead of being merely embossed on cream-coloured plastic. Judicious use of a felt-tipped pen can do the trick here, but it shouldn't be necessary. The switches nearby give you an instant form and line feed, and switch you off-line to enable these functions to be implemented. Lifting the lid, you are struck by the fact that the cartridge ribbon has been vetoed and an ordinary typewriter nylon ribbon substituted. This will enable you to keep the running costs low, which is an important factor when considering the merits of a budget printer. The paper is held firmly to the platen of the friction feed by a no-nonsense bar of heavy metal, so it looks as if it will be possible to remove the paper out of the back of the machine without damaging a very thin strip of metal, as is the case with some printers. The bail bar moves easily, and the switch that takes you from tractor mode to friction and back works smoothly, if somewhat stiffly. The removal and refitting of the tractor is easily accomplished. FEATURES An attractive feature is that the four Dip switches which control important functions are on the back of the machine, out of the way but accessible: other manufacturers please note. The functions are: - Paper Out. - Buffer-Full Printing: This results in carriage returns having no effect, so that printing takes place as a continuous line, and then only when the buffer is full! Most users will want to set this to "off"! In this mode printing takes place as soon as a carriage return is received by the printer. - Interface selection: Sets the interface to seven or eight bits, according to your choice. - Line Feed: allows an automatic linefeed if you wish, but its instruction is overridden by the switch which controls the buffer. The machine is supplied with a parallel interface TTL level fitted as standard, and there is an option to have serial (RS232C/current loop). The Centronics connection worked perfectly on connecting up the printer and removing the transit screws. The manual is rather dull. It appears to have been put together by a boffin on a small budget. The cover is utilitarian, and the print is very small. It contains about 90 per cent information about the mechanism, and only 10 per cent details of how to control the machine and software. It is very unlikely that a beginner would be able to get the machine running satisfactorily, without returning with the manual and a perplexed look to his friendly local dealer. The more experienced user will find it aggravating that no explanation is given for the difference between enhanced printing and double strike, and more importantly, there is no indication of incompatibilities between various modes. You have to carry out research to discover whether you can have double strike and emphasised at the same time, and in all pitches. A simple table would have solved this irritation completely. UP AND RUNNING The machine goes into self-test mode if you switch it on with the line feed button depressed. This is always a good scheme, because interfacing can be a problem, and at least you know that the machine is OK mechanically and electrically once this test has performed satisfactorily. The 4K buffer fitted as standard means that the printer will be faster in use than its rated 100cps simply because 4K of data can be sent to it and control immediately returned to the host computer, which can then get on with doing something else. The noise of operation is acceptable although the paper feed mechanism makes a bit of a tinny noise. I was pleased to note that even 85g per square metre paper was firmly held in place by the tractor mechanism. I found that it was not possible to wind back the paper past the perforations, because they catch on the retaining bar which holds the paper to the platen. The font design used is an attractive one, but the 17 pitch characters, although smaller, are very close together, especially the capitals. Similarly, the 12 pitch option results in overcrowding, because narrower characters are not used. On the other hand, the double-width characters are very pleasing aesthetically, and the double-striking and enhanced modes of printing place the second impression in just the right spot to fill in the gaps very well. The effect is very close to typescript. You have eight international character sets, and italic as well as normal characters. The 9x9 matrix will give you 10, 12 or 17 characters to the inch, resulting in 80, 96 or 132 characters on a line. In the enlarged characters, you get 40. 48, and 66 characters to the line respectively. The line pitch is programmable at 1/6, 1/8, or in any number of 72nds, or 144ths of an inch. Bit image graphics are available in single or double density. In a 480 or 960 dot matrix. Fractions, mathematical symbols and block graphics characters are available. The available commands make the printer very versatile. Vertical and horizontal tabs may be set. Condensed and enlarged characters can be switched on and off within a line. Pitch changes may be made within a line. Form length may be set in lines, and page length in inches. Back space is available, which facilitates underlining. In addition, you may switch on underline mode, during which all characters are underlined until you tell the Star to stop. You may also set the printer's left margin. Superscripts and subscripts are supported, whereupon the machine goes into unidirectional mode. You may set the header line at other than the standard sixth line, which will affect the next page jump when the page length has been set. Skipping over perforations may be set and switched off, and you may decide whether you want a slashed or unslashed zero to be printed. The paper out warning may be switched out to allow you the facility of using single sheets, should you so wish. On initialisation, the defaults set are 10 characters to the inch, and 66 lines to the page, not 72 as stated in the manual. The manual has also not been revised to take account of further changes for the UK market. The character set available on power up is the English one. According to tests, the machine, which is bi-directional and logic-seeking, works at the rated speed. VERDICT The Star is versatile. If somewhat noisy, and its only major defect is in the manual's quality. Its price/performance ratio is reasonable, but at £289 plus VAT, it is not going to set the world running to the door of the suppliers in a very competitive market.

Personal Computer News

Ian Scales

PRINT POWER: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW If you're looking for hard copy Ian Scales has the answers - and the all-important questions. Printers are one of the first things most users hook up to their micros. Choosing the right one, however, is a fairly demanding business requiring a cool head and a firm grasp of your likely requirements. All printers are not the same. The field can be broadly split into three catagories. At the bottom of the price range there are the alternative types like the ZX printer, at the top of the heap are the letter quality daisywheels, and occupying a large chunk of middle ground are the dot matrix. The first category includes printers like Sinclair's ZX or Apple's Silentype and represent computer manufacturers' attempts to enhance their products with comparatively priced printer offerings. The ZX Printer remains cheap at the expense of paper width, paper quality and print quality. It is useful only to people who want hard copy listings of programs and this is all it is really designed to provide. The problem is that printer prices have refused to descend in pace with the computers they serve. A computer is composed mostly of microchips and the cost of manufacturing them has been steadily coming down over the past ten years. Conventional printers, however, have the handicap of crucial mechanical components and it has not been possible to radically cheapen their manufacture without making them flimsier and less reliable. Electrostatic printers introduce technology with fewer moving parts but at present compromise on print quality to such an extent that they suffer severe limitations. RELEASES Although dot matrix printers are stuck with lots of moving parts they do seem to be experiencing benefits from their mass production. As everyone knows, the more you produce of one thing, the cheaper it becomes per unit. The Japanese manufacturers haven't wasted time in virtually cornering the low-cost printer market and expansion of this market is starting to have a lowering effect on UK prices. The past couple of months have seen some notable releases - especially Epson's new and relatively cheap RX80. At under £300, it and its competitors are viable printers for users with micros in the £300 to £450 price range. Even lower priced matrix printers are available at around £200, although these tend to lose points on quality and flexibility. The dot matrix printer sends a print-head back and forth across the paper. On the head is a row of (usually 7 or 8) pins. The pins are punched through an ink ribbon onto the paper and build up the characters as a matrix of dots. It's a popular method and there is a wide variety of matrix printers on the market in every price bracket, so picking a dot matrix printer is not an easy matter. Potential buyers must arm themselves with a proper understanding of the things before venturing forth with a fistful of notes. The first thing to work out is interfacing. Most printers could really be described as purpose-built computers in their own write. A printer will usually have a small volatile memory (buffer) and a processor to manipulate it and control the print head as it goes over the paper. Far from being directly under the control of the micro, they deal as equals-obeying and interpreting text code. This computer to printer communication is carried out through an interface. INTERFACES An interface is a small group of electronic components which takes the signals from the computer and converts them so they can be sent down a cable to another compatible interface waiting at the other end to convert them back. There are two main types of interface. The first is known as a serial interface - the most common of which is the RS232. This sends pulses one after the other, rather like a one lane roadway. Its alternative is a parallel interface and the most popular of these is the Centronics. The Centronics sends its signals in ranks over a multi-lane roadway rather like tanks in a Russian May-day parade. The advantage here, of course, is speed - you can get more individual bits down in a given time. So the first thing to work out is what interface your computer has and attempt to match this to interfaces on offer on available printers. It is important to distinguish between interfaces available as standard on a printer and those available as extra cost. Some manufacturers give you a choice - either one or the other or the basic price. It may turn out that you have no standard interface on your computer. If so get interface prices before making a purchase, as the expenditure can radically alter the economics of the whole exercise. The Spectrum, for instance, is cheap partly because it has no interfaces. These then have to be added at extra cost before a reasonable printer can be configured. Kempston does a Centronics interface for the Spectrum. But having the right interface unfortunately doesn't guarantee compatibility. Some computers recognise different character codes and this can lead to major problems - always get an assurance from the dealer or, if possible, see the printer running with your model computer feeding the text. SPEED Another criterion that must be considered is print speed. Although 100cps sounds fast, it can still take some time to get through a length of text. Like all features, speed is generally a direct trade-off against price. If you plan to use your printer for business try and work out how much text you are likely to want to put through in a given time in determining your requirements. Remember too that manufacturers' speed claims tend to err on the optimistic side. It seems to be a convention not to take account of the time involved in carriage return. As a rough guide it is wise to knock 20 to 30 cps off the claimed speed. Many users will be interested in graphics capability. This is often very dependent on supporting software - make sure you get all the details sorted out before getting too enthusiastic. Print flexibility is another quality the importance of which will differ from user to user. Do you really need a full European character set or need to run different typefaces on the one page? (it can often look rather gross anyway). The same applies to different pitches and print positions (the maximum number of characters that can be printed on one line by the smallest character set). FEEDING TIME Feed methods are another problem. The dot matrix works best with a tractor feed. The paper is pulled under the print head by a sprocket which marries with a line of perforations on the fan-fold paper. Once the paper is out of the printer the strips of paper down the side of the sheet with the tractor holes can be torn off. Alternative feed methods - sheet feed for instance - tends to increase the price quite dramatically. Unless you want to use letter-head paper sheets, fanfold tractor feed will probably be quite satisfactory. PRINT QUALITY Perhaps the most important consideration, however, is print quality. On the face of it, a dot matrix printer is an ideal method of putting what appears on a screen onto paper. It really uses the same method as the cathode ray tube building up characters from a matrix of dots. The dot matrix printer is conventionally supposed to come underneath the daisy-wheel printers in terms of print quality. Instead of a matrix, the daisywheel uses moulded characters which strike the paper through a ribbon using the same principle as the typewriter. The daisywheel is really a con-job designed for people who want the convenience of computer-generated text but wish to retain the illusion that every letter sent is the result of half an hour's slave labour on an electric typewriter. it is interesting to note that the early typewriters sometimes featured a script-type which was supposed to resemble 'joined-up writing'. The idea was the same - it was designed to appease correspondents used to pen and ink. My guess is that the days of the daisywheel printer are probably numbered. Eventually people will get used dot-matrix text which they already receive in gas bills, circulars and even, sometimes, books. Good dot matrix printing is just as easy to read as that from a daisywheel and it has been completed faster, quieter and comes from a machine that on average costs half the price. When it's finished doing letters, the printer can output graphics in its spare time. One alternative to dot matrix is ink jet. The odd man out in this round-up is Olivetti's JP101. This printer uses a spark to fling ink out of a capsule directly onto the paper. The JP101 does only one line of dots at a time, but does them very fast - this makes it particularly good at graphics. PCN COMPARES THE RECENT CONTENDERS Over the past two months PCN Pro-Tested a representative sample of printers. Below we take a look back. The PCN Printers Pie roughly indicates the trade off between the four major variables. Price is represented by economy so excellent value for money will close up the price/performance gap. THE APPLE Dot matrix Pro-Test: PCN, March 18, 1983 Price: £489 Speed: 100 cps Interface: Parallel Centronics General Features: Seven different character widths and variable proportional spacing. Characters can be printed standard, bold or elongated. Tractor and friction feed are standard and carriage width is 10.5 inches. Contact Apple [redacted]. FACIT 4510 Dot matrix Pro-Test: PCN, April 1, 1983 Price: £498 Speed: 80 cps Interfaces: Parallel Centronics, Serial R5232. General Features: Full European character set. Has proportional spacing and characters can be printed at 10, 12 or 17 per inch. Characters can be printed standard, elongated or underlined. Block graphics plus high resolution graphics. High res densities of 70, 62 and 100 dots per inch. Friction and tractor feed standard. Contact Access Data Communications [redacted]. OLIVETTI JP101 Ink jet Pro-Test: PCN April 29, 1983 Price: £359 inc VAT Speed: 67-80 cps Interfaces: Centronics, RS232 £55 extra General features: Uses spark jet. Perhaps its main advantage is almost no noise. Provides ten, 12 or 18 characters per inch. Has full European character sets, and three types of underlining and bit graphics. Its graphics capabilities are extremely good. Tractor and friction feed is standard. Contact Micro-Peripherals [redacted]. EPSON FX80 Dot matrix PRO-Test: PCN, April 29, 1983 Price: £438 inc VAT Speed: 160 cps Interfaces: Parallel Centronics, IEEE optional extra. General features: Definable proportional spacing. Subscripts and superscripts are good quality - has double strike giving close to daisywheel quality. Provides normal condensed and double-width characters. You can define your own character set and double and even quadruple density bit graphics are available. Tractor/pin and friction feed standard. Contact Epson UK [redacted]. EPSON RX80 Dot matrix Pro-Test: PCN, May 6, I983 Price: £250 to £300 plus VAT (the dealers tend to set their own retail prices - shop around). Speed: 100 cps Interfaces: Parallel Centronics, IEEE and RS232 optional extras. General features: Alternative character set available plus double strike, bold strike and a full range of widths and pitches. Modes may be turned on and off within a line. Bit graphics are available in a wide variety of modes. Tractor feed is standard. Contact Epson UK [redacted]. STAR 510 Dot matrix Pro-Test: PCN May 13, 1983 Price: £289 plus VAT Speed: 100 cps Interfaces: Parallel Centronics General features: A 9x9 matrix provides either 10, 12 or 17 characters to the inch while the line pitch is programmable. Pitch changes may be made within a line. Superscripts and subscripts are generated in unidirectional mode. Bit graphics come in single or double density in a 480 or 960 dot matrix. An interesting feature is the printer's use of a normal typewriter ribbon instead of the usual printer cartridge. Tractor and friction feed is standard. Contact Miro Peripherals [redacted]. QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO ASK PCN Checklist - arm yourself with the right set of questions before you put yourself on the printer market. What do I want to print? Think carefully about print quality and graphics. Will you really print a lot of letters and do you want graphics hard-copy? How important is time? Is it worth £100 to save the odd minute or so in printing time? Compatibility: Will it run properly with my computer? How much will it cost to make it do so? Speed: What is the real speed? . Ribbon: How much do they cost and how long will they last? Feed method: Is the standard tractor adequate or is it worth the extra money to buy a sheet feeder? Carriage-width: Will it take the paper? Flexibility: How many different character sets and graphics modes are available for the money? What will extra features cost? Noise: Make sure you hear it first. Support: Will the dealer fix it if it breaks and how long will he continue doing so? Are there maintenance schemes available?