The new NLQ (Near Letter Quality) ROM is a simple and easy to use ROM which is intended to provide high quality printout (almost like a daisy-wheel) from your Epson printer. The three printers supported are the FX80, RX80 and the FX100.

To access this high quality print, you need to type two simple commands. Firstly, NLQ80 or NLQ10@ are used to set the number of characters per line, and secondly, to activate the print routine, you use *NLQTYPE, VDU1,129 or OC129 (in Wordwise). To use the NLQ with View you must buy an NLQ driver from Watford at an additional cost of £7.50.

The printout from an Epson using this ROM is, as you can see from the example, much better than the normal Epson print. The print quality is now very close to that of the Kaga Taxan printer reviewed in Beebug Vol. 3 No. 8. The printing speed is somewhat slower than normal, but this is to be expected as each line is printed in two passes.

Overall, this is a good piece of firmware that makes good use of the Epson's printing capability to provide a performance comparable to that of more recent printers.