Common Sense and Low‐Cost Printers; or, Does Your System Have Impact?
| Published date | 01 February 1985 |
| Date | 01 February 1985 |
| Pages | 29-38 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb047593 |
| Author | Walt Crawford |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Common Sense and Low-Cost Printers;
or, Does Your System Have Impact?
Walt Crawford
While a printer may be the
most important accessory in a personal
computer system, it can also be the most
annoying and disappointing part
of
a
system. Printers can be
noisy,
difficult, and expensive. Their quality
ranges from intolerably poor to better
than typewriter output.
Tastes
and
expectations for printed output have
changed in recent years, making
low-cost printers more widely acceptable.
Some of the
issues
involved in choosing
and using a printer are discussed. A
recent survey article is cited
as
a source
of further information. Based on
personal experience, the author
describes and compares two low-cost
printers: the Star Micronics
Gemini-Wand Hewlett-Packard's ThinkJet.
When it comes time to share work done on a
computer, one frequently needs a printer. Hard copy
means hard decisions: choosing a printer may be more
difficult than choosing a computer. Changes in
printers occur almost as rapidly as changes in micro-
computers: prices decrease; speed increases; quality
undergoes a number of changes. One should think
about how, how much, and where one will use a
printer.
Prejudices and Printers
People have strong opinions about print quality.
Certain forms of print are generally disliked, while
others are favored. Choosing hard-copy devices calls
for compromise. Given levels of price, speed, noise,
and print quality, every microcomputer user makes
a choice that favors some qualities at the expense
of others.
Not long ago, the situation was rather straight-
forward. There were essentially two choices. Dot
matrix printers were cheap;1 the copy they produced
was mediocre. Without fully-formed characters
(daisy-wheel or thimble printers), one could not
obtain professional output. A $3,000 daisy wheel
printer would produce "professional" output at 30
characters per second, while a $1,500 dot matrix
printer would provide "crude" output at 80 char-
acters per second. Unless one could afford two printers
(costing more than a computer and disk drives
combined), a choice had to be made between these
sets of options.
Crawford is Manager of Product Batch at RLG.
1.
Cheap means different things at different times;
in this case, it means $1,000 or less.
ISSUE 10 29
To continue reading
Request your trial