Re: Attaching a tractor-fed Epson LX-80 dot matrix impact printer was the height of luxury
Whilst I agree that the FX-80 had limitations, it was a product of it's time.
It was the dot matrix printer to aspire to when printers at home started appearing. This was mainly because it was the printer that was badged by IBM (with a custom ROM) with the IBM PC, but it was already carving out a particular niche before then.
What it did was introduce a printer language (I won't call it a PDL, because it was more like terminal escape sequences than something that describes a printed page), which because of market penetration, made other printer manufacturers copy it. So may printers implemented what became ESC-P, but it was always desired to have the original printer. And if you were wanting software on your BBC micro or Apple ][, or any of the other home computers that bothered to have a parallel printer port, there would always be drivers available for Epson FX-80 printers.
I think that the readership here who are criticizing the FX-80 are forgetting all of the other printers that have dropped from memory because they were so nasty. Seikosha GP-80 anyone? (which is strange, because Seiko and Epson were part of the same industrial group)
The FX printer family of printers started a line that led on to the RX (cheaper), LQ (24 pin), and LX (cheaper 24 pin) impact dot matrix printers of increasing print quality and eventually the Stylus range of ink-jet printers (which still understand ESC-P2 even today).
Of the other impact printers around at the time, probably the Star LC-10 would have been the FX-80's biggest competitor, and that was often badged by other companies.
I found that the much more expensive Oki printers were more sturdy workhorses than the Epson ones, but for home use, FX-80 (especially the later marks which were less bulky) were just fine. And we had Qume daisy wheel printers for quality work on the systems I looked after in the early '80s.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
