Product: Printer EPROM for generating lower
case letters with true descenders
on 80-column printers
Price: $14.95 plus $3 shipping
From: RMG Enterprises
1419 1/2 7th St.
Oregon City OR 97045
The computer owner is forever a slave to technology. Every day some new product arrives which will somehow enhance the productivity of our wonderful devices. My vote for peripheral that does the most is the printer. After all, the paper product is what survives and is seen by others long after the RAM has gone to bed. A good printer makes any computer look good. Unfortunately a new printer is a major upgrade. Wouldn’t you really prefer an Apple Laserwriter at $5000+ than what you have now? If you can’t afford a whole new printer, maybe you could afford a small enhancement.
As you may remember I have a Seikosha GP-100A, the brother of the Gorilla Banana. Now, what I would like is their new model (which actually costs less than what I have). But to make do I bought a new EPROM from RMG, 1419 1/2 7th St., Oregon City OR 97045 for $14.95 + $3 shipping, for the Seikosha. This is advertised to provide “true descenders” (letters with “tails” like g, j, and p). What he has actually done is to move the 5×7 dot matrix down one and use the lowest row for the descenders. This makes the usual letters one row shorter but overall the effect is definitely an improvement. In addition they have revised many other letters to give the print a much more open appearance although they still fit in the same space.
I think the chip really does add to the appearance of the output at a very reasonable price. Specify which letters are on your chip when ordering. I have included a sample of the new and old typestyles so you can compare the two – allowing for problems in reproduction. I have included the full set of typestyles available on the printer. These are easily called up using the Word* program.
For those of you who have already upgraded to a more modern printer a combination typestyle-buffer is available from Carolina Engineering (800 222-9073) for many printers. Their device offers a choice of typestyles and a choice of buffers. Naturally it costs a bit more: $169+. The medium is the message.