Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:9360 rec.music.synth:3288
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From: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vince Manis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,rec.music.synth
Subject: Re: Printer for ATARI ST/ E-Z score plus
Message-ID: <2208@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: 26 Apr 88 18:24:56 GMT
References: <7741@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <712@leah.Albany.Edu>
Sender: nobody@ubc-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vince Manis)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 38
Keywords: letter quality, music notation

In article <712@leah.Albany.Edu> jac423@leah.Albany.Edu (Julius A Cisek) 
writes:

>Definately get an Epson. Epson printers are the most supported printers
>in the world (they also happen to be relatively cheap and have excellent
>quality).

Well, er, that may not be the best advice. One should definitely buy an 
Epson *compatible*; but that could be anything from a bottom-of-the
line Panasonic (that's what I have, and I'm quite happy with it) to a
laser printer. Generally, when one compares on prices, Epson (the company)
does not come out as the leader. When I bought mine (2 years ago), 
Panasonic/Roland (the same printer under different labels) was far ahead 
on price; two Epson dealers *told* me to buy Panasonic instead. 

If you're printing music scores, you should probably look at a 24-pin
printer. ALPS (I believe) recently announced one for US$449. The increased 
resolution may well be worth it to you.

BTW, although just about all Epson compatibles have a graphics mode, most 
of them are slow in graphics mode: whether I'm using First Cadd in ST mode,
or MS Word in Mac mode, throughput can be measered as around 10 pages per
*hour* (no, I'm using the parallel interface, not the serial one!). If 
you're really serious about doing a lot of graphics printing, look for the
fastest printer you can afford. 

Best bet: generate a file full of stuff typical of what you're planning to 
print. Put it on a disk formatted on an IBM PS/2 (your ST can read or write
such disks). Then take it into various stores and ask to print it on various
printers. Look at the quality of the print, and the time taken to print it.
List the printers which do an acceptable job on that test, and then think
about price, support, etc. If a dealer won't let you do that, then find 
another dealer. 

Vincent Manis                    | manis@cs.ubc.ca
The Invisible City of Kitezh     | manis@cs.ubc.cdn
Department of Computer Science   | manis@ubc.csnet
University of British Columbia   | {ihnp4!alberta,uw-beaver,uunet}!
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