27 Jun
2007
27 Jun
'07
4:41 p.m.
A couple of comments on the display of the 9830:
- the 32 character 5*7 dot-matrix LED display had large, very easy to read
characters (1/2 to 3/4") and there were keys for horizontal scrolling
through an 80 character (IIRC) line.
I thought (without checking) it was a 96 chracter line, but I could
easily be wrong on this.
- the printer was fast: it didn't take very long,
for example, to get a full
program listing (not like waiting for a teletype to clickety-clack across the
page). It was a dot-matrix thermal printer with (IIRC) a full horizontal row
print-head (printed an entire dot-row at once).
Yes. the print head is the full width of the machine and doesn't move.
The unit is mechanically very simple, a platten roller directly driven by
the drive motor, and a couple of deed rollers to get the paper to the
platten (and amazingly this is one autoloading printer that does work).
I think, again without checking, that due to the design of the
electronics, this unit prints each charcter one dot at a time. In other
words, for a fiven row of dots on the paper, it prints the leftmost dot
of each charater (all 80 characters at once), then the nect dot from the
left, and so on.
FWIW, thermal fac paper works fine in the 9866.
-tony