 xO                                                                 rtance.  After much hair pulling and re-working to get everything just right...  you are finally ready to print out all of that wonderful prose for the world to see,The following article is a hardware review of a 256k buffer: It was written by Tony Patterson, and first appeared in the March, '90 MOAUG.  Distributed here by permission of author--- PJH
 
 
You've spent the last half hour typing in a letter of some importance.  After much hair pulling and re-working to get everything just right...  you are finally ready to print out all of that wonderful prose for the world to see, but there is just one more thing that you have to do before print time... get the coffee.  You spent plenty on that great new dot matrix printer because of its incredible speed, so why do you find yourself going to get a cup of coffee to drink while your letters print out?  Because you still have to wait for the printer to finish and return control of your computer back to you for another letter or that great new game that just came in.  
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                            TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE!  
A print buffer can take that letter from your computer as fast as lightning and feed it to the printer at just the right speed, thus freeing up the compu- ter to do other things besides feeding ASCII values to the printer.  Many buffers even have a copy function that will let you print a second copy of the same letter at the touch of a button.  So you can print a file copy of one letter while working on another, or saving the world from the Flingon Inva- ders, and never skip a beat! But then the grappling hooks of reality begin to sink in... These little beasties are not inexpensive.  The smaller 64k buffer can run up to $120 while a good size 256k can run upwards of $250!  As this hit me I slowly began heading in the general direction of the coffee maker.
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                     TECHNOLOGIC SYSTEMS TO THE RESCUE!  
While waiting for the coffee to brew, I was thumbing through my last (Yes... I dropped it too) issue of Computer Shopper, I noticed a small sidebar Ad for Printer Buffers.  Two things caught my eye... The strange-looking machine pictured and the listed price for a 256k buffer, $99.95. The machine had a button, L.E.D. and cable connection on the face of the unit.  I later found out that this was the input connection and there was an output connection on the other side.  Talk about throughput, in one side and out the other!  But that price... $99 and a 30 day money back guarantee... and they shipped C.O.D. too.  I was hooked!  
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                              THE UGLY WORKHORSE 
Ok, ok... so I had to buy an adapter and another printer cable, but the total including these items plus shipping and C.O.D. charges was only $118, still not bad at all.  The installation was a snap and operation is almost invisible, though you must remember to reset the buffer between documents.  To reset just press and hold the one (and only) button for two seconds. For an extra copy just touch the button twice in one second, that is all there is to it.  The designers of this unit must have taken the day off while the engineers were hard at work.  For while it performs flawlessly there is just no way to incorporate the unit into a system set-up so that it looks good.  After trying every way I could think of to set it on a shelf I finally ended up with it stuck between the desk and the printer, sitting on end so that I can see the light and get to the button.  
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Testing out the unit on a two page document using form feeds between the pages gave me control of the computer in about 20 seconds, now that is FAST!  The major drawback is in graphics printing.  I do all of my graphics within PowerPAINT, and this program does not send the graphics to the printer very quickly at all.  I doubt that there is any savings when printing out detailed graphics...  but turn this baby loose on a word processing document and learn the true meaning of multi-tasking!  As a matter of fact...  by the time the printer gets to these words I will be deeply involved (and losing badly I'm sure) in a game of Addictus.  May the buffer be with you... 
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              Buffers up to 2 megabytes are available from:  
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TECHNOLOGIC SYSTEMS, 18277 Timber Trails, Marysville, OH 43040. 
                        (513)-644-2230 
 
------ TONY PATTERSON February, 1990 
 
ck between the desk 
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