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From: tjs@dadent.wustl.edu (tom sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Cheap Printers and the Grappler?
Message-ID: <262@wuee1.wustl.edu>
Date: 8 May 89 03:51:46 GMT
References: <46700113@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu> <160700032@primerd>
Sender: news@wuee1.wustl.edu
Reply-To: tjs@dadent.UUCP (tom sullivan)
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Lines: 19

In article <160700032@primerd> barry@primerd.prime.com writes:
>>1. I know that a "Grappler" exists for such a beast... but which one?
>>    LQ? C/Mac?
>
>You need the C/Mac version, which converts Imagewriter control codes
>and provides the serial to parallel conversion.  If you're mainly 
>interested in  bit-mapped output (no  draft mode), the Grappler work.
>It's slow, but did the job when I tried on with my FX-80 a few months ago.
>Draft output was slower than Best output!

I've  tried the same product with my VERY old EPSON MX-80 with Graftrax-80
upgrade. It failed miserably, just as Epstart from Softstyles did.

I think the Grappler's problem was the age of my printer. I believe that
Espon changed things from my old model and the commands are slightly different.
As for Epstart. It doesn't even pay attention to hardware handshaking. It
claims to but only checks after dumping several thousand characters.

tom