Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!gatech!bloom-beacon!hermes!jpexg
From: jpexg@hermes.ai.mit.edu (John Purbrick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: 24 Pin Printers
Summary: Panasonic KX-P1124
Message-ID: <3223@hermes.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 88 05:43:00 GMT
References: <8812062139.AA21409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32

In article <8812062139.AA21409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>,
UA0827@SYSE.SALFORD.AC.UK writes:
>       I feel that a 9 pin printer is rather inadequate from the types of
> document that i will be producing and therefore, coming to the point of
> this letter, was wondering if anyone out there had any recommendations
> as to the suitability of a specific 24 pin printer.  I would be
> grateful for any replies, also any problems that certain people might have
> had with a specific type/make of 24 pin printer.
> Keith Topham(UA0827@UK.AC.SALFORD.SYSE)

I just bought a Panasonic KX-P1124, Panasonic's competitor with the Epson
LQ2500 and the NEC P2200. You can get all of these for well under US$400--I
paid $299+ shipping from Harmony Computer in New York (I'm always worried
when I deal with the NY bandits, but have never seriously lost. The printer
arrived in 4 days.) Anyway, it's excellent. 5 built-in NLQ fonts and draft,
and graphics at 180x180 dots per inch. It can print an Atari monochrome screen
dump at a width of just over 3.5"--legibly, even 8x16 graphic characters.
The user has several choices of paper-feed options, including a push tractor
which allows printing right up to the tear-off edge, so no wasted sheet of
paper between jobs. If straight ASCII text is all you want to print, there
are no problems driving the KX-P1124, but graphics would be something else.

Instead of selector switches, it has a complex bank of lights and buttons for
setting up, rather like setting the time on a video recorder. The instruction
manual is adequate to get through this, and the settings are non-volatile so
you should need to do it only once.

Drawbacks: It is bigger and louder than a 9-pin printer. Control codes are
often different too. I use two homebrew programs for printing C programs and
Degas screens, and I had to modify them both to use the new printer. 

In general, I think it's great.