Aucbvax.1727 fa.info-terms utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JAC@MIT-MC Sun Jun 14 08:42:48 1981 NEC Spinwriters I've had experience with the NEC Spinwriter (letter quality printer). It's handshaking (EAK/ACK) is incompatible with that of the Diablos, which, if working over a network, is a minor disadvantage (after every 256 chars, the printer pauses for a fraction of a second waiting for the host computer to respond to the "continue" signal from the NEC ... the "continue" character sometimes takes a short while to filter through the NEC). It has other handshaking protocols -- XON/XOFF, which, if directly connected to a machine, usually works. I normally use this mode, and with it, I haven't had any problems. It also has pin handshaking protocol (one of the pins drop when the NEC buffer is full) .. I've never used that. The NEC Spinwriter is one of the fastest letter quality printer on the market (it runs at 55 cps, which can be improved to about 60-65 cps, if you program a *good* bi-directional driver). It is also one of the most reliable (along with maybe Diablo). California State University Northridge has about 25 of them, and has had very few problems with them. I've never had a problem with mine; I have owned it for about one year. Sorry if this msg was a bit long ... -- JAC ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.