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PRODUCT SHOWCASE Epson’s LX-300 dot matrix printer has colour option Not everyone with a computer wants or needs an inkjet or laser printer. A dot matrix printer can do most print jobs and at price which is only a fraction of the fancier machines. And if you want to print in colour, a dot matrix unit like the Epson LX-300 can do it, by changing to a 4-colour ribbon. No-one denies that a laser printer or an inkjet can pro­duce a smart looking print job but for the home computer user or small business, they are often an expensive overkill. They are also expensive to run, with toner cartridges and drum renewals being very costly and while inkjet refills are cheaper, ribbons for dot-matrix printers are cheaper again and last longer. Another aspect to consider if you are using a laser printer is the disposal of the toner cartridge. Ideally, this should be recycled, both from the point of view of economics and the envi­ronment – toner cartridges should not go to the tip! All of which is a strong argument in favour of a low-cost dot matrix printer, such as the Epson LX-300. This has a 9-pin print head and prints on 80-column wide tractor-feed fan-fold paper or on single sheets (eg, A4-size) in friction-feed mode. By comparison with some inkjet 88  Silicon Chip printers, the LX-300 looks a little bulky but it is reasonably compact with dimensions of 385mm wide, 275mm deep and 130mm high, although the height is greater if the single-sheet feeder is in place. It weighs approx­ imately 4kg. As with many printers which can take single sheet or trac­tor feed paper, the LX-300 features “paper parking”. This allows you to have tractor-feed paper hooked up but by “parking” it, you can print one or more sheets using the friction feed. In fact, some readers may argue that the need for tractor feed paper is far less than it once was and that it is cheaper to use copy paper than fan-fold tractor feed paper. Both these comments are true but you still need the ability to handle tractor-feed paper if you want to print multi-part (e.g., original plus duplicate) forms such as invoices or computer labels. Printer fonts are selected by pushing the “font” button to light up the font LEDs in various combinations. By this means you have a choice of Roman, Sans Serif, Draft and Draft Condensed modes. The first two modes are classed as NLQ (near letter quali­ty) and the printer achieves this, in spite of only having a 9-pin print head, by making two passes for each line. In fact, if an underline is required for a line, the print head will make three passes. This requirement to make multiple passes means that the LX-300 is quite slow when printing in NLQ modes – the quoted figure is 44 characters/ second at 10 characters per inch and 53 cps at 12 cpi. In the draft modes, it is much faster: 264 cps at 10 cpi and 220 cps at 12 cpi. Feeding single sheet paper in is interesting. You just place the sheet into the feeder and push it down slightly until you feel resistance. The machine then feeds the paper round the platen and moves it backwards and forwards to find the top of sheet. This is good because you don’t have to line it up your­self. Another good feature is the way in which the printer cable and mains cord are plugged in underneath the machine. The cords are then routed out via both sides the case, so that they don’t interfere with tractor paper feed. Two interfaces are provided, a 36-pin Centronics socket and a 25-pin D-socket serial interface. In other respects, the LX-300 has all the normal features you would expect from a small dot-matrix printer and all of these are accessible via the Epson Esc codes. Mostly you never have to worry about these because it is all done by your printing soft­ware. You just tell the software that you are using Barcode time clocking An inexpensive time attendance system has been announced by AS Microcomputers. Designed and manufactured in Australia, the ZipNet Terminal is about the size of a standard mains power point. It is wall mounted, displays the time, has a slot for bar-coded cards and a socket for touch memory tags. Once a person has clocked in, the time recorded is stored for later collection by an administrative computer. For further information, contact an Epson LX-300 and the computer does the rest. We did not try the colour feature. This involves a special ribbon cartridge which is used by print ribbon shifting, again under the control of the printer and your software. The four colours of the ribbon are cyan, magenta, yellow and black (ie, CMYK, the standard four-colour printing process). ASP Microcomputers, 456 North Road, Ormond, Vic 3204. Phone (03) 578 7600. In conclusion, the Epson LX-300 is definitely worth consid­ering if your print jobs do not require laser or inkjet quality. It is cheap to run and cheap to buy. Our sample came from Rod Irving Electronics and they currently have it on sale, priced at $249 including sales tax. Rod Irving Electronics has a range of Epson printers available and more information is available at any of their stores. (L.D.S.) 20MHz Dual Trace Scope $795 100MHz Kikusui 5-Channel, 12-Trace 50MHz Dual trace Scope $1300 COS6100M Oscilloscope $990 These excellent units are the best value “near brand new” scopes we have ever offered. In fact, we are so confident that you’ll be happy, we will give you a 7-day right of refusal. Only Macservice can offer such a great deal on this oscilloscope . . . and you are the winners! 1. Power switch 2. LED 3. Graticule illumination switch 4. Trace rotation 5. Trace focus 6. Trace intensity for B sweep mode 7. Brightness control for spot/trace 8. Trace position 9/10/11. Select input coupling & sensitivity of CH3 12. Vertical input terminal for CH3 13. AC-GND-DC switch for selecting connection mode 14. Vertical input terminal for CH2 15/22. Fine adjustment of sensitivity 16/23. Select vertical axis sensitivity 17/24. Vertical positioning control 18/25/38. Uncal lamp 19. Internal trigger source CH1,CH2,CH3,ALT 20. AC-GND-DC switch for selecting connection mode 21. Vertical input terminal for CH1 26. Select vertical axis operation 27. Bezel 28. Blue filter 29. Display selects A & B sweep mode 30. Selects auto/norm/single sweep modes 31. Holdoff time adjustment 32/51. Trigger level adjustment 33/50. Triggering slope 34/49. Select coupling mode AC/HF REJ/LF REJ/DC 35. Select trigger signal source Int/Line/Ext/Ext÷10 MACSERVICE PTY LTD 36. Vertical input terminal for CH4 37. Trigger level LED 39. A time/div & delay time knob 40. B time/div knob 41. Variable adj of A sweep rate & x10 mag 42. Ready lamp Australia’s Largest Remarketer of Test & Measurement Equipment 20 Fulton Street, Oakleigh Sth, Vic., 3167. Tel: (03) 562 9500; Fax: (03) 562 9590 43. Calibration voltage terminals 44. Horizontal positioning of trace 45. Fine adjustment 46. Vertical input terminal for CH5 47. Delay time MULT switch 48. Selects between continuous & triggered delay 52. Trace separation adjustment 53. Ground terminal May 1995  89 Hand-held pH meter The model HH4-PH is a handheld pH meter with a 4-digit 12.7mm liquid crystal display. It has inputs for a pH electrode and a temperature sensor. A simple key­ pad allows the reading to be displayed in pH, milli­ volts or temper­ ature. Temperature com­pen­sation may be set manually or may be automatic via a sensor. A unique “electrode slope” display allows the condition of the pH electrode to be monitored, providing the user with an indication of wear. Calibration is carried out via a pushbutton procedure, with calibration data stored in non-volatile memory. Single point or 2-point calibration methods may be used. Additional features include a programmable automatic switch to prolong battery life and a programmable digital filter to reduce noise interference. A soft carry case, pH buffer solutions and a range of pH electrodes Cadjet plotter for large drawings Plotting up to A0 in size, Cadjet is ideal for mapping and CAD users to produce colour logos, titles, colour raster insets and small cross sections. Cadjet uses inkjet tech­nology to provide clean, reliable plotting with excellent line quality and a choice from a palette of 256 colours. Plots in A1 size monochrome draft quality are produced in less than 2.5 minutes and spot-colour draft quality in 10 minutes. Other features include automatic cut and stack in roll-feed mode, replot or multiple copies without the need for re-transmitting the vector file, and the ability to add an optional host-based spooler for convenient, productive unattended plot­ting. Print output may be on a variety of media including quality pen plotter bonds, vellums and film. There are seven “quick action” buttons on the control panel for frequently used instructions. In addition, there are five LED indicators and a liquid 90  Silicon Chip are available as options. For further information, contact Amalgamated Instrument Company Pty Ltd, 5/28 Leighton Place, Hornsby 2077. Phone (02) 476 2244. crystal display with an intuitive menu so that the unit can be used with minimal training. A black cartridge produces fast monochrome drawings at 300 x 300 dpi. There is also an option for 600 x 300 at a reduced speed. Adding colour is simple with the tri-chamber cyan-magenta-yellow cartridge which delivers 300 x 300 dpi printouts. The standard four megabyte plotter buffer handles most files and can be easily upgraded to 32 megabytes using standard SIMMs. The plotter emulates HP-GL, HP-RTL and HP-GL/2 so it works with a wide variety of CAD and mapping software. It also has the ability to combine vector drawings with raster images on the same page. The unit is available in A0 size or A1 size and comes stan­dard with a Windows 3.1 driver, AutoCAD/386 Release 12 ADI driver vector and raster versions. For further details contact Susan Barry, National Sales Manager, TCG, 30 Balfour St, Chippendale, NSW SC 2008. Phone (02) 698 5000.