GETTING INTO PRINT

The decision to buy a printer to complete your computer system will be one of the most difficult and certainly one of the most expensive which you as a Sinclair user will have to make. The variety of printers available tends to confuse rather than facilitate your choice and many of them are likely to cost than the rest of your system.

Yet if your are intending to use a Sinclair machine for something other than games playing, you will, sooner or later, need to make a permanent copy on paper. With that in mind Sinclair User looks at 11 printers, from the inexpensive to those suitable for small business.

The first consideration must be the purpose for which you intend to use a printer. All the printers reviewed will produce listings of programs, some faster than others and some more legibly. If you intend to do some word processing the type-style and method of printing is also important.

Most of the machines reviewed are dot matrix printers. That means that, just as characters on the screen are composed of a number of dots - pixels - the printer has a number of little pins which are pushed on to the paper, through the ribbon, to form the character. The greater the number of dots the better the definition of the character.

Just as user-defined graphics are made by changing the arrangement of the dots, dot matrix printers can easily change the type-style or the character. The printer holds those definitions in ROM and by telling it which set you want to use it can print in different type-styles and use different national characters, in some cases even Japanese.

Some of the printers use different methods. The Alphacom 32 and the Brother EP44 are thermal printers. That means they use special, more expensive paper although they are still dot matrix types. The pins become hot and cause the paper to change colour. The Brother can also use plain paper with the addition of a special ribbon.

The Dyneer DW16 is a daisywheel printer, using a wheel which has each character, like those on a typewriter, at the end of a spoke. To change type-styles the wheel has to be changed.

The Olivetti JP101 has a small cartridge which fires an ink-jet at the paper. As there are few mechanical parts the printer is quieter than most.

The Tandy CGP-115 has four ball-point pens which form characters by moving the pen horizontally and the paper up and down.

The speed of a printer normally is measured in characters per second; in theory the higher the number the greater the speed. To test that we used a standard body of text, the first chapter of Genesis, and timed how long it needed to print. The text was prepared using Tasword 2 and printed via a Kempston E interface, where suitable, a total of 796 words over 77 lines.

The results were surprising. The Microline 80, with a quoted speed of 80 cps, took nearly twice as long as the Mannesmann Tally MT80 and three times as long as the Olivetti. The answer would be to take such quoted figures only as a very rough guide.

Another thing to consider is how you want to drive the printer. Two of the machines reviewed connect directly to a Sinclair computer, the Alphacom 32 and the Seikosha. While that is undoubtedly the cheapest method, when and if you upgrade your computer you are left with a printer you may not be able to connect to your new machine.

There are two standards by which printers normally are driven, Centronics and RS232. Roughly speaking, Centronics interfaces have eight wires so that the bits of each byte travel to the printer at the same time along each wire. Serial interfaces have one wire and the bits travel along it one after the other.

Whether you use Centronics or RS232 does not make much difference so long as you do not try to mix them. On many of the printers Centronics is fitted as standard and RS232 is available as an add-on at extra cost.

Your future plans must be taken into consideration. Users with a Microdrive can use the RS232 port fitted. If you are thinking of buying a QL it also has an RS232 port fitted as standard. Other add-ons such as modems also tend to use RS232 and so the system has advantages, despite the extra cost.

The width of paper the printer can handle may also be a consideration. Normal listings may use only 32 columns but if you like to add REM statements at the side or for word processing, 80 is the minimum.

It is often necessary to indicate to the printer what you want it to do, whether changing the type-style or feeding paper through it. There is a standard for it known as ESCape codes, i.e., codes which escape from normal printing to do something different. Those codes were originated by Epson and are now used by most other makes of printer.

To help you each printer is now considered, briefly, in turn. The Sinclair printer has not been included as it has been discontinued and will be available only while stocks last.

Alphacom 32 is the cheapest on the market at the moment. It has reasonable print quality and is easy to use. It has only a ZX-81 size connector, so Spectrum users must use it as the last add-on. From Dean Electronics or Prism.

Seikosha GP50S is an inexpensive plain-paper printer, not particularly fast and rather noisy but easy to use. It has a Spectrum-size edge connector, so ZX-81 users will need an extender card not yet available from Seikosha, so try Eprom Services. From Dean Electronics or Prism.

Tandy CGP-115 is the cheapest colour printer; it is very slow but can do pleasant graphics with the appropriate software. From retail shops.

Microline 80 is supplied with roll paper holder as standard. It uses ordinary typewriter ribbons. It has only one type-style. From X-Data.

Brother EP44 is a portable typewriter with RS232 connection. It is not really suitable as a computer printer but as a typewriter it is amazing. From local typewriter shops.

Olivetti JP101 is a quiet ink-jet printer; it has slightly blurred print but is reasonably fast.

Epson RX80 is the standard by which other printers are measured. It is versatile with clear print and all the facilities you are liable to need.

Star Gemini-10X was caught by a recent price reduction for the Epson which it mirrors. It may be discounted further. From London Computer Centre or Micro Peripherals.

Mannesmann Tally MT80 is a good looking printer, also heavily discounted.

Canon PW1080A is very fast and has a good range of facilities, including programmable characters. It is slower in near letter-quality mode. From London Computer Centre or Micro Peripherals.

Dyneer DW16 is a business users' daisywheel printer. The code is compatable with Diablo printers. From X-Data.

British Olivetti Ltd, 86-88 Upper Richmond Road, London SW15 2UR.

Dean Electronics Ltd, Glendale Park, Fernbank Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 8JB.

DRG Business Systems Ltd, Peripheral Division. 29 Lynx Crescent, Winterstoke Road, Weston-super-Mare. Avon BS24 9DN.

London Computer Centre, Grafton Way, London N1.

Mannesmann Tally Ltd, Molly Millar Lane, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG11 2QT.

Micro Peripherals Ltd, Basing, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 0BY.

Prism Microproducts Ltd, 18-29 Mora Street, City Road. London EC1.

X-Data Ltd, 750-751 Deal Avenue, Slough Trading Estate, Slough, Berkshire SL1 4SH.

This is an interesting option if you're thinking about getting yourself a printer, but are a bit wary of splashing out hundreds of pounds on a full blown, letter quality printer.

The GP50S is styled along the same lines as most of the Seikosha range, but scaled down a little. It is a dot matrix compatible with the ZX81, Spectrum and the USA Times/Sinclair machines. In other words, it plugs straight into the peripherals port at the rear of the computer, with no need for an interface of any sort, just like the old ZX Printer.

Setting it up was nice and easy, the manual is well produced and the illustrated instructions were very simple to follow. The first problem that I encountered came as I plugged the printer into my Spectrum's edge connector. The lead connecting the printer to the computer is hardly six inches long, and though the manual has a nice picture of the printer sitting side by side with the old rubbery Spectrum, my own machine is housed in a LO-Profile keyboard which is all of four inches wider than the original keyboard. As a result, it was physically impossible to have the two units side by side, there was no room to have them sitting back to back on my workspace, so the printer had to be moved around so that it was facing a fairly awkward angle. I think that an extender cable is probably de rigeur if you're going to buy this printer.

Once hooked up, the GP50S seemed to work perfectly well. There's no additional software required, all the Spectrum's built-in printer commands, LLIST, LPRINT, and COPY worked perfectly, and it handled graphics characters without any problems.

When I tried some word-processing using Tasword 2, I encountered a problem with carriage returns, due to the fact that Tasword uses 64 characters per line, which is fine if you're using a full size printer, but the GP50S can only print 46 characters on its 5" wide paper. As a result, the printer was throwing up question marks after every 64th character.

I assumed that this problem could be solved if I just found the necessary control code, and rang DDL's technical guys for help. The initial response was 'you're not trying to use it for serious word-processing are you?' No, of course I wasn't - the simple narrowness of the paper makes it unsuitable for that but I did feel that it was worth trying it out just for experiments sake.

Now, although the GP50S may not be up to any serious word-processing, I honestly don't think you can hold that against it. Certainly none of its competitors in the under £100 range can claim to be suitable for that task either. And if you're going to compare the GP50's performance with that of any of the other printers in that price range, then it will probably win hands down. At £69 plus VAT, it's more expensive than the Alphacom 32 (£55), and the same price as the Floyd 40, but is more versatile and, being a dot matrix printer, rather than thermal, it has a much better print quality.

It's not as versatile as the Epson P40, which has a variety of fonts, and allows command codes for enlarged, condensed and bold characters, whereas the GP50S is by DDL's own admission, fairly unsophisticated and only allows about half a dozen control codes to be entered. What these do, I'm not quite sure about, as there's no mention of them anywhere in the manual. However, the GP50S is £30 cheaper than the P40.

So, if you want a fairly simple but reliable printer that isn't going to set you back £100+, and just want it for listings, screen dumps, and informal letters and notes (rather than high quality letters), then I think that the GP50S is probably just what you want (but don't forget the extension cable).

The Seikosha range is handled in this country by Data Distributors Limited, 5 Kings Rise Park, Ascot, Berkshire.

HARDWARE WORLD

With ever-increasing amounts of peripherals available for Sinclair computers, users are finding it more and more difficult to know what to buy. We present a buyer's guide to joysticks, keyboard and printers and review the best of the rest from the 1984 add-on market.

The decision to buy a printer to complete your computer system will be one of the most difficult and certainly one of the most expensive which you as a Sinclair user will have to make. The variety of printers available tends to confuse rather than facilitate your choice and many of them are likely to cost more than the rest of your system.

Yet if you are intending to use a Sinclair machine for something other than games playing, you will, sooner or later, need to make a permanent copy on paper. With that in mind Sinclair User looks at 11 printers, from the inexpensive to those suitable for small businesses.

The first consideration must be the purpose for which you intend to use a printer. All the printers reviewed will produce listings of programs, some faster than others and some more legibly. If you intend to do some word processing the type-style and method of printing is also important.

Most of the machines reviewed are dot matrix printers. That means that, just as characters on the screen are composed of a number of dots - pixels - the printer has a number of little pins which are pushed on to the paper, through the ribbon, to form the character. The greater the number of dots the better the definition of the character.

Just as user-defined graphics are made by changing the arrangement of the dots, dot matrix printers can easily change the type-style or the character. The printer holds those definitions in ROM and by telling it which set you want to use it can print in different type-styles and use different national characters, in some cases even Japanese.

Some of the printers use different methods. The Alphacom 32 and the Brother EP44 are thermal printers. That means they use special, more expensive paper although they are still dot matrix types. The pins become hot and cause the paper to change colour. The Brother can also use plain paper with the addition of a special ribbon.

The Dyneer DW16 is a daisywheel printer, using a wheel which has each character, like those on a typewriter, at the end of a spoke. To change type-styles the wheel has to be changed.

The Olivetti JP101 has a small cartridge which fires an ink-jet at the paper. As there are few mechanical parts the printer is quieter than most.

The Tandy CGP-llS has four ballpoint pens which form characters by moving the pen horizontally and the paper up and down.

The speed of a printer normally is measured in characters per second; in theory the higher the number the greater the speed. To test that we used a standard body of text, the first chapter of Genesis, and timed how long it needed to print. The text was prepared using Tasword 2 and printed via a Kempston E Interface, where suitable, a total of 796 words over 77 lines.

The results were surprising. The Microline 80, with a quoted speed of 80 cps, took nearly twice as long as the Mannesmann Tally MT80 and three times as long as the Olivetti. The answer would be to take such quoted figures only as a very rough guide.

Another thing to consider is how you want to drive the printer. Two of the machines reviewed connect directly to a Sinclair computer, the Alphacom 32 and the Seikosha. While that is undoubtedly the cheapest method, when and if you upgrade your computer you are left with a printer you may not be able to connect to your new machine.

There are two standards by which printers normally are driven, Centronics and RS232. Roughly speaking, Centronics interfaces have eight wires so that the bits of each byte travel to the printer at the same time along each wire. Serial interfaces have one wire and the bits travel along it one after the other.

Whether you use Centronics or RS232 does not make much difference so long as you do not try to mix them. On many of the printers Centronics is fitted as standard and RS232 is available as an add-on at extra cost.

Your future plans must be taken into consideration. Users with a Microdrive can use the RS232 port fitted. If you are thinking of buying a QL it also has an RS232 port fitted as standard. Other add-ons such as modems also tend to use RS232 and so the system has advantages, despite the extra cost.

The width of paper the printer can handle may also be a consideration. Normal listings may use only 32 columns but if you like to add REM statements at the side or for word processing, 80 is the minimum.

It is often necessary to indicate to the printer what you want it to do, whether changing the type-style or feeding paper through it. There is a standard for it known as ESCape codes, i.e., codes which escape from normal printing to do something different. Those codes were originated by Epson and are now used by most other makes of printer.

To help you each printer is now considered, briefly, in turn. The Sinclair printer has not been included as it has been discontinued and will be available only while stocks last.

Alphacom 32 is the cheapest on the market at the moment. It has reasonable print quality and is easy to use. It has only a ZX-81 size connector, so Spectrum users must use it as the last add-on. From Dean Electronics or Prism.

Seikosha GP50S is an inexpensive plain-paper printer, not particularly fast and rather noisy but easy to use. It has a Spectrum-size edge connector, so ZX81 users will need an extender card not yet available from Seikosha, so try Eprom Services. From DRG or Prism.

Tandy CGP-115 is the cheapest colour printer; it is very slow but can do pleasant graphics with the appropriate software. From retail shops.

Microline 80 is supplied with roll paper holder as standard. It uses ordinary typewriter ribbons. It has only one type-style. From X-Data.

Brother EP44 is a portable typewriter with RS232 connection. It is not really suitable as a computer printer but as a typewriter it is amazing. From local typewriter shops.

Olivetti JPIOl is a quiet ink-jet printer; it has slightly blurred print but is reasonably fast.

Epson RX80 is the standard by which other printers are measured. It is versatile with clear print and all the facilities you are liable to need.

Star Gemini-10X was caught by a recent price reduction for the Epson, which it mirrors. It may be discounted further. From London Computer Centre or Micro Peripherals.

Mannesmann Tally MT80 is a good-looking printer, also heavily discounted.

Canon PW1080A is very fast and has a good range of facilities, including programmable characters. It is slower in near letter-quality mode. From London Computer Centre or Micro Peripherals.

Dyneer DWl6 is a business users' daisywheel printer. The code is compatible with Diablo printers. From X-Data.

British Olivetti Ltd, 86-88 Upper Richmond Road, London SW15 2UR.

Dean Electronics Ltd, Glendale Park, Fernbank Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 8JB.

DRG Business Systems Ltd, Peripheral Division, 29 Lynx Crescent, Winterstoke Road, Weston-super-Mare, Avon BS24 9DN.

London Computer Centre, Grafton Way, London N1.

Mannesmann Tally Ltd, Molly Miller Lane, Wokingham, Berkshire RG11 2QT.

Micro Peripherals Ltd, Basing, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 0BY.

Prism Microproducts Ltd, 18-29 Mora Street, City Road, London EC1.

X-Data Ltd, 750-751 Deal Avenue, Slough Trading Estate, Slough, Berkshire SL1 4SH.