Roy wood wrote:
> All this talk of printers for the QL has been quite interesting and I > would have joined in earlier except that Demon's mail server has been > playing up and some of the messages have been severely delayed. > If anyone wants a laser printer that will work with most QL programs > they should look into the EPSON EPL 6100. This has the ESC/P2 driver > built in which will work with ProWesS and is backwardly compatible with > other EPSON drivers. It is of course only B&W but it should sell at > around 200 pounds. Beware of the EPL 6100L which is a cheaper version > with no ESC/P2 driver. > You could also try the Kyocera FS1010 which has an EPSON emulation built > in but some of the characters are a bit odd. I am sure that a suitable > translation could be done if some one wanted to do it. (One example is > the pound sign comes out as two hearts and a hash symbol from quill. > Quite how one symbol turns into three I have no idea.) > This problem with printing will only get worse because, as mainstream > computers become more and more powerful and sophisticated the need to > build drivers and emulations into printers will decrease and the > manufacturers will save a few pennies by not bothering to put them in. > At the moment there are still some printers available with them in > because some businesses still use DOS based programs but their use is > decreasing rapidly. > Our problem is not one of connection but of sheer programming because > all of our programs are designed to print directly with their own > drivers and that is not how modern printers have developed. Just making > a connection will not solve much. Marcel, Jochen and I discussed this > QPC2 Printer programme at length while we were together in the US but > this will be of no use to anyone not using QPC2. A similar solution has > to be worked out for other hardware platforms and that will not be an > easy task. > By the way Tony - of course a dot matrix is more reliable than an inkjet > or laser printer. This is the same reason that a bicycle does not suffer > from a cracked cylinder head or some such thing. It is just not as > sophisticated and does not have so many moving parts. On the whole, > though, the output is pretty bad in comparison to even the cheapest > inkjet. You can still by new dot matrix EPSON printers with the > emulations intact but they are often more expensive than laser printers > because the manufactures can only sell you a ribbon as a consumable and > there is not a great need for these because they last so long. On a > laser they can sell you drums, fusers, toners and, in HPs case even the > tractor pads wear out and need replacing! Masses more profit there! > Cynical, me? Marcel
