Integral Data Systems Prism Printer Model: 132

Our Integral Data Systems Prism Printer Model: 132 is more than adequately described from the following COMPUTE magazine articles and links

From COMPUTE! ISSUE 21 / FEBRUARY 1982 / PAGE 183

A new color printer user-priced at $1,995 has been introduced by Integral Data Systems of Milford, New Hampshire. The Prism Printer™ is a low cost commercial color printer designed to compete with units costing three times as much.

The new 132-column dot matrix printer will produce eight colors using a four band ribbon which carries the process colors of cyan, magenta and yellow, as well as black.

"It’s going to help define the expanding color graphics market," says Peter R. Eisenhauer, Integral Data Systems Vice President of Marketing. "There’s a demand for color, primarily among business and professional users." Other immediate applications for the printer include the visual translation of scientific and medical data.

In addition to the color printer itself, Integral Data has plans to offer a number of collateral products which will facilitate the use of the Prism Printer in many key system environments. The first is expected to be an interface card for the Apple II and III which will have a graphics driver for the color printer resident on the card. Other products in the works include additional software drivers for Apple products as well as a color/graphics driver for the recently announced IBM Personal Computer.

The Prism Printer offers semi-automatic cut sheet feed, also a high-speed data mode. In the normal (correspondence) mode, the unit prints overlapping high density (24x9.) matrix characters at up to 150 characters per second, bidirectionally. The high-speed data mode enables the user to select a standard density matrix and output large volumes of data at print speeds in excess of 200 cps.

Standard features include proportional spacing, enhanced (bold) text printing and standard print densities of 10, 12 or 16.7 characters per inch. The Prism Printer prints a full 132 characters per line at 10 pitch (characters per inch) with other pitches giving line lengths up to 220 columns on standard 15-inch-wide EDP paper.

Selectable features include automatic text justification, programmable horizontal and vertical tabbing, reverse paper feed, and "find positioning" of characters of 1/120th of an inch. While the Prism Printer employs the standard ASCII upper- and lower-case 96-characters set, up to four different 96-character sets can reside within the printer at the same time, for foreign language or custom character printing.

The Prism Printer is micro-processor controlled, with true "logic seeking" look-ahead capability and a high-speed slew for maximum output. It has a standard RS-232C serial interface as well as a Centronics-compatible parallel interface. Serial transmission rates from 300 to 9,600 baud are switch selectable.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue21/New_Products_Prism_Printer_From_Integral_Data_Systems.php

Printers Reviewd (including the Prism) can be seen at
http://www.atarimagazines.com/v1n3/printersreviewed.html

Our Prism was very kindly donated by William H L Williams