!lm10
!rm76
Buying a Printer for your Apple II...................Mike Laumer

I purchased my first printer in November just before Thanksgiving.  The process of selecting a printer can be confusing, painful, and very expensive.  Here is my tale.

  After writing printer drivers for other people's printers for several years, I was not convinced that the IDS 225 or the Paper Tiger were for me.  They are fairly bulky, noisy, and the print quality was not up to the quality I am used to every day at work.  The Trendcom 100 was quieter, but only 40 columns wide.  The Trendcom 200 and Apple Silentype are 80 columns, but 40 columns per second is rather slow when you want to print 60 pages.  From my experience thermal paper yellows and is hard to write on with ball point pens.  The only thing I really liked about these printers was the price.  The AXIOM printer (which prints on aluminum coated paper by blasting off the aluminum with electrical sparks, exposing a black paper beneath) was faster, but the weird paper looked expensive and did not come in fan-fold.  I did like the speed and price.  Several new manufacturers began advertising printers that looked good, but I could never watch them operate at a computer store, and I heard negative comments about them.

Enter the Japanese!  I was getting desperate for a printer, ready to buy almost anything.  I begain hearing rumors about the new EPSON MX-80 printer:  $650, reliable, 80 columns per second, bi-directional printing, a possible graphics ROM add-on....  Sounded good, so I went shopping.

[ Store #1 ]   I asked, "Do you sell the MX-80 printer?"  They said, "It will be in next week, on Wednesday."  I came back Wednesday, and saw the MX-80 working on an Apple II.  The print clarity was the best I had seen on an inexpensive printer.  It was comparable to the Centronix 779, which was huge, very noisy, and twice the price.  "How much does it cost?"  It was $130 more than advertised, but it included interface and cables.

[ Store #2 ]   I went to another store, a new one I had never seen before.  They had a bunch of Atari home computers (cute, aren't they?).  "Do you sell anything for the Apple II?  I see you don't have any Apples on the floor."  The salesman was busy with a customer and a take-out lunch.  I looked around, and noticed an MX-80 on a table.  After getting his attention (he was quite busy eating his sandwich, and asking  if I didn't mind), I asked the salesman a few questions about the printer and its price.  "Only $499", he said.  "How come the low price?"  "We don't have a bunch of other printers to unload that are clearly beat by the price-performance of the MX-80."  The Apple interface would run about $50, he thought.  It looked like a good deal, so I went home to discuss it with my wife.

[ Store #2 ]   HOW NOT TO SELL ANYTHING....   My wife thought it sounded good, too.  I returned to the store a few days later.  The same salesman was there selling an Atari home computer (to me they are just programmable video games).  It was 15-20 minutes before he was done, but the prospect of the low printer price gave me patience...I waited.  After the sale, he picked up his sandwich and let me ask some more questions.  That's when I found out about the graphics ROM that Epson plans to offer in the future.  "We will be raising the price to $599 next week, but it is still $499 this week.  However, we are out of stock right now.  I can get you one by the middle of next week."  But I really wanted to get one for the holiday weekend, since I could do a lot of computer work then.  "No way.  There just won't be any until next week.  And, you will have to pay now to get the price."  This sales pitch was getting just a little suspicious...but the price still had me hooked.  I was trying to justify buying now, paying now, saving now, picking up later.  Then he began saying how he was the first Epson dealer in Dallas, and that the other stores had complained to Epson about his price.  He had to raise his price or Epson would not let him sell their printer any more.  "I sold 23 printers already this week", he bragged, as he hauled out a wad of checks from his pocket to show me.  "I can't spend any more time with you now.  My profit margin is too low to justify more than five minutes."  (There were no other customers in the store.)  Well, he convinced me, all right.  "Fine!"  I walked out the door, driving right over to....

[ Store #1 ]   "Do you have the MX-80 in stock?" I asked.  "Yes we do", replied the cashier.  "I would like to buy one", I stated.  The sales girl went into a back room, returning with a big box and a small box.  She took my charge card and rang up the sale.  I went home and had a great weekend.

Lesson for the Day:

1.  After all the rip-off's from the early days of the microcomputer market, nobody gets my money in advance unless they have built a reputation in the community.  I never saw this store before, and they wanted my money in advance after a strange sales push.

2.  Anyone who displays customer checks so casually to other customers gets an immediate black mark with me.  I wouldn't like mine to be treated in such a cavalier manner.

3.  I don't like to spend my lunch hour talking to someone stuffing his face while I am hungry.

4.  If it isn't profitable for the salesman to try to sell me his printer, I really want to know.  I'll go to someone who does believe it to be profitable, and is a  lot more courteous about selling it.  If my $600 has no profit for him, I am not going to pay in advance and lose it when he goes bankrupt the next day, before I get my printer.

5.  Don't ever hire a turkey (even in late November!) who does a good job sending your customers to someone else's store.  Especially buying customers.
