| ★ HARDWARE ★ IMPRIMANTE - AMSTRAD DMP-1 ★ |
AMSTRAD DMP-1 (Amstrad Computer User) | DMP-1 (Personal Computing Today) | PRINTING MONEY (Amstrad Computer User) |
It is common practice among computer manufacturers to package someone else's printer as their own. The Epson printers wear Hewlett-Packard and Memotech badges and all the Commodore printers are made in someone else's factory. The Amstrad DMP-1 is the same as the Siekosha GP500A and very similar to the Commodore MPS80 1 . All three of these machines are made by Seikosha but the Commodore version has a special interface and a changed character set. Since the CPC464 has a standard Centronics interface there is no need for a major modification. I did, however, expect that the DMP-1 would have the same character set as the CPC 464. It doesn't! There are no little men or bombs. Neither the print quality nor the speed are spectacular features of this printer. The typeface lacks true descenders, that is the letters which should go below the line like, '9' and 'p' get pushed up. This is uncomfortable to read. There are no facilities for underlining or emboldening text and none of the standard controls such as the changing of line spacings are implemented. This is fine if you just want to print listings but not satisfactory for any work which involves text. At 50 cps (characters per second) it is slow for a dot matrix printer. The noise level is acceptable but not good. The German distributor for Amstrad did not think that the DMP-1 was good enough and so they sell the Texan/Kaga KP810 for use with the CPC 464. All in all I was disappointed with the DMP-1 and at £199 it is £25 more expensive than its Seikosha twin.
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