Low cost letter-quality printing combined with ease-of-use appealed to Mike Batham

Smith Corona has recently released a new range of printers aimed at the US microcomputer market. The Smith Corona L1000 is a daisywheel printer designed to be the flagship of the range (the others are all dot-matrix printers).

The L1000 replaces Smith Corona's previous rock-bottom priced daisy-wheel, the TP1. The most obvious improvement on its predecessor is the inclusion of both parallel and serial interfaces.

The printer comes in the usual large cardboard box enveloped in large quantities of styrofoam. The unpacking (and repacking) instructions are excellent, unlike other printers I have used that have no unpacking instructions at all. This time I didn't find myself desperately hunting for the transit screws when the varriage started making straining noises.

The Smith Corona L1000 is built of moulded plastic and contains several internal foam pads intended to reduce vibration and noise. Unfortunately this still doesn't stop it from sounding like a rapidly-firing machine gun without a muffler.

Friction feed is standard on this printer and it will take paper up to a width of 13". A tractor feed attachement is available as an optional extra.

On the front panel are three switches. The first adjusts the pitch which can be 10, 12 or 15 characters per inch. The second is used when printing on fan-fold paper for setting the 'top of form', enabling the printer to ship the requisite number of lines depending on the paper length. The third is a form feed and also activates the self-test when pressed on power up.

With its parallel and serial interfaces the L1000 can be connected to virtually any micro. And with the correct connecting leads (which must be purchased separately) the printer is very easy to set up.

The manual is straightforward and well-written with many explanatory diagrams. Compared to the unintelligible, complex manuals that come with many Japanese printers this is a very welcome relief.

The L1000 is fairly slow, as you would expect of a daisywheel printer. The maximum speed is 12 cps in bi-directional mode. Underlining is possible, but there are no facilities for super or subscripts or for graphics.

The single sheet feed set-up was almost identical to that of a typewriter (What else do you expect from Smith Corona?) and was simple to use and reliable. Not a single sheet was chewed up. The print quality was also equivalent to any typewriter.

The printer ribbons are held in squarish cassettes which simply pop out at the touch of a button. The new one simply snaps into place - nothing could be simpler. Carbon ribbons are recommended in the manual, but the cloth ribbon I was provided with was more than adequate.

The idiot-proofing on this printer even extends to changing the daisywheels. There is only one way they can be put on, so mistakes are eliminated. They are a bit still initially, but you can practice with the box easy daisywheel comes in until you get the knack.

Smith Corona carries a wide range of typefaces but, as with all daisywheels, if you want to use italics or anything else within a body of standard text, you have to stop and change the wheel. It's the price you pay for letter quality.

The DIP switches, concealed behind a louvre on the back of the printer, allow you to choose the baud rate from a wide range when using the serial interface. Paper length and ASCII or ANSII can also be selected.

I have only a few minor complaints about the L1000. For one thing, the self-test doesn't want to stop - you actually have to turn off the power! It also doesn't use the entire character set available on the wheel. The other problem is the vibrations caused when the printer is in action. If I didn't have a concrete floor I suspect the glasses would have rattled in the cupboard.

The L1000 is a user-friendly piece of hardware that even the most technology-resistant people will come to terms with. I could simply plug it in and get on with the job.

The price is competitive, though the extra cost of the tractor feed may offset any price advantage compared to, say, the Juki 6100. However, most other low-cost daisywheel printers are of inferior quality.