Display article   Subject:  High Speed Printing -- The DMP 2130
   04/30/97   19:19:14


HIGH SPEED PRINTING -- THE DMP 2130

You say you want high speed printing?  You want a printer that
can print through an original plus FIVE copies?

Tandy's Technology Team has come up with a pure winner in its
DMP 2130 Super High Speed Dot Matrix Printer (26-2845).  From its
unique high speed (480 cps) 28 wire print head to its flat paper
printing path, the DMP 2130 is the business user's dream come
true.  Built for speed and ease of use, this printer is ideal for
the user that prints lots of data and multi-part forms, requires
super high speed printouts, prints on heavy stock single part
paper, prints an occasional letter quality document, and doesn't
want to pay the super high price usually associated with high
speed printers.

Unique Printhead

The DMP 2130 has a unique 28 wire printhead design.  Although the
printer has 28 wires, it uses them in 9 wire emulation mode for
draft and 18 wire emulation mode for letter quality.  The print
wires are arranged in two rows of 9 pins and one row of ten pins.
In draft mode the rows of pins are fired alternately to produce
the super high speed required in business printing.  And since
all 28 pins are not used for each character, the life on the
printhead is increased considerably, giving you a printer you can
rely upon for many years to come.

Flat Paper Path

One of the most dominant features about this printer is its
unique outside cosmetic appearance.  It doesn't look like your
ordinary conventional printer.  In most printers the printhead
fires the pins in a horizontal position and prints on the paper
as it faces you.  In the DMP 2130 the printhead fires the pins
straight down in a vertical motion.  There is no round platen
like you find in most other printers.  The paper path is flat
... the paper flows from back to front (or front to back for
single sheet) without ever turning a corner.  This unique paper
path causes the printer case to look completely different from
the rest of the printer line.

You might ask why we designed the flat paper path on the
DMP 2130.  Since this printer is targeted at the business user,
printing multiple part forms will be a common requirement.  As a
multiple part form is fed through a normal printer with a round
platen, the top form and each form underneath starts slipping.
Let's think about this for a moment.  If a form has to go around
a curved surface, the form closest to the platen has the shortest
distance to go, and the form furthest away from the platen has
the longest distance to go.  Since each part of the form in
multiple part paper is exactly the same size, something has to
give when the form is twisted around the platen.

In the case of forms and PC printers, this results in the top
form not being in exactly the same place as the bottom form in a
four or five part set.  If the form has lines drawn on it, those
lines no longer match up from the top sheet of paper to the
bottom sheet of paper ... this is called "mis-registration."  So
when the user prints in boxes and lines up the print head to
print correctly on the top paper, after printing several forms
the print is still correct on the top sheet, but the bottom sheet
printing is out of place.

With the DMP 2130 this is no longer a problem!  Because the paper
feeds straight through the printer without turning any corners,
registration stays perfect.  The user ends up with more
professional results when sending things like invoices, W2 forms,
and statements to their customers.  And since the platen has
fewer moving parts, you can expect longer printer life.

Other Features

The DMP 2130 has built-in paper park to allow the user to retract
the fanfold paper to the back without totally removing it when
single sheet printing is required.  It will automatically load
and position the paper for printing, and when using the "1 inch
top margin feature" the printer will advance the paper to a tear
off position for easy removal and move it back ready for printing
when the next character is received.  The DMP 2130 incorporates
the now standard "IBM" type parallel port and uses the 26-288 six
foot printer cable.  It is shipped with the IBM Proprinter XL
emulation mode as the default, and also contains an Epson FX286e
emulation.

The front mounted control panel includes an easy-to-read LCD
display that gives the user a visual indication of the mode being
selected as well as the status of the printer.  Using the front
panel controls, the user can enter a SETUP mode that controls all
of the printer's many different configuration options.  The
DMP 2130 also contains a 32K built-in print buffer for maximum
printing speed.

The Right Price

There are only a few printers that can match the performance and
engineering levels of our offering.  The competition that you do
find will be priced above $1,500.00 at retail (and even the
street prices of these units will only begin to match our price).
The DMP 2130 is priced at $1,199.00.  This is definitely one
product where NOBODY COMPARES.
