GETTING IT ON PAPER

    In the modern office, a person's productivity is measured by the weight
    of paper generated.  Maybe we're a bit cynical, but it certainly  seems
    that way.

    What  cannot be denied is that the most medium for information storage,
    transmission and retrieval is still good  old  paper.   Paper  has  all
    sorts  of  advantages.  You can't accidentally format a piece of paper.
    If you delete it (by throwing it  in  the  bin)  you  can  undelete  it
    without  resorting  to  a  special  undelete  program.   If the text is
    altered, you can see that it has been.  You  can  use  paper  anywhere,
    even  in  places  where there is no electricity.  Paper is portable ...
    the list of advantages is endless.  One major UK software  house  keeps
    all its records and accounts on paper;  we asked them why.  "We've seen
    the shambles that computers get you into", they said.   But  it's  also
    true  that  computers are very useful.  So we want some way to get what
    is in the computer, onto paper.

    Enter the printer, stage left, minus its cable  (printers  always  come
    without  printer  cables,  or  if  they do have a cable, it's the wrong
    one).  Printer advances stage left,  gets  its  ribbon  caught  in  its
    tractor  feed,  and  falls  over.   Or  it gets its paper caught in its
    ribbon, or the print head fouls the paper, or a sticky label comes  off
    and sticks under the platen, or ...

    Printers  are  prone  to  these little mishaps.  Most people spend more
    time fiddling with their  printer  than  anything  else.   People  take
    computers  for  granted,  but  have a love-hate relationship with their
    printer.

    The only things worse than computer manuals are printer manuals.   They
    are  usually  written  in  a  kind  of  Oriental  English,  or Germanic
    American, by special printer-manual-writers, whose chief  qualification
    seems  to  be  a  requirement  not  have seen the printer that they are
    writing about.

    But we all need printers, so is there any way to get clear of the traps
    that  printer-makers  strew  in  your  path?   Probably  not.  There is
    probably no way you can avoid coming a cropper  over  a  printer.   But
    there  are  plenty of ways you can make it more likely that you will be
    joining the paperless office, although without intending  to.   Instead
    of  advising  you  how  to  avoid  printer  problems (which we think is
    impossible), we're going to tell you  how  to  make  yourself  as  many
    problems as possible.

    HOW TO CHOOSE THE WRONG PRINTER

    First,  where  should  you  buy your printer?  The best place is from a
    spiv.  A good printer spiv can be recognised by the way he can say "IBM
    compatible"  with  a  straight  face,  and  has  total mastery over the
    phrases "RS232" and  "Centronics".   A  printer  spiv  will  offer  you
    discounts,  assurances  of  compatibility  with  whatever  hardware and
    software you like, assurances that you can get new ribbons "at any good
    dealer"  and  didn't  know  very  much about double glazing when he was
    selling that last week.

    Buy the cheapest, even if it is a  make  you  haven't  heard  of.   The
    printer  might  cost  only  #150,  and you will save even more money on
    ribbons, because you won't be able to get any, and you'll have  to  use
    the  same  ribbon  for  the rest of your life.  Make sure that it isn't
    compatible with a common printer like the Epson, Diablo or  Qume.   Ask
    the  printer spiv you buy it from if it's Epson compatible, and believe
    him when he says it is, and  be  sure  not  to  get  his  assurance  in
    writing.   That  way,  when  it  turns  out it won't run your favourite
    packages, you can have a lot of fun shuttling between the printer  spiv
    and the software house, playing "it's his fault".

    Believe  everything  you hear about speed.  Don't read the small print,
    that says that the 500 character per second is measured for printing  a
    row of spaces, and doesn't include the time taken to print a character,
    let alone to throw a new line, or feed a page.

    Don't go for letter quality;  if the printer  has  a  mode  called  NLQ
    it'll  be  good  enough;  after all you don't want anyone thinking your
    correspondence was done on a mere typewriter.   Alternatively,  if  you
    like  peace and quiet, get a daisywheel.  The racket that it makes will
    drive all your colleagues away, and you might even end up with your own
    office.

    But  to  make  a really bad choice, go for a laser.  Lasers combine all
    the worst features of dot matrices and daisies, at a price that's  hard
    to beat.  The laser has all the graphics non-capability of a daisy, yet
    with the inflexibility of font and type size of the dot.  Their ability
    to  jam  paper  is  without  peer,  and  there's no messing around with
    envelopes and labels, as the laser just won't take them.   Most  lasers
    have  a serial interface, so you get the benefits of learning all about
    the RS232 non-standard.  The paper tray will only cope with 12  minutes
    worth  of printing, unless you buy an extra sheet feeder (see below for
    information about sheet feeders).  They even stack the  paper  back  to
    front,  and  sometimes  spray  the pages all over the floor, so you can
    organise office collating parties.  Lasers are a barrel of laughs.

    MAKING THE CONNECTION

    Having acquired the wrong printer, how can you have the most fun out of
    making  it  work with your computer?  First, make sure you get a serial
    interface, as there's much more that can  go  wrong.   Buy  some  wire,
    connectors, a small soldering iron and lots of solder - you're going to
    need it.  Don't forget to buy a de-solderer, as trial and error is  the
    best way to do this job.  Just for practice, connect the serial port to
    your parallel port,  and  sniff  the  sharp,  tangy  smell  of  burning
    components as your parallel port goes sput.

    Next,  get  out  the printer manual (some printers come with a manual),
    and turn to the pages on interfacing the printer to a  computer.   Then
    phone  up  the  printer  spiv and ask him why this isn't in the manual.
    Make sure you get the printer manufacturer's  phone  number  from  him,
    brush  up  your  Japanese  (or German) and call them.  Explain that you
    want to know how to connect their printer  to  your  computer,  and  be
    prepared  to  give this explanation to lots of new, interesting people,
    all of who think you must be stupid if you can't even manage to connect
    a  simple  printer.   Eventually, you'll find someone who thinks you're
    stupid for a different reason - for buying that  printer.   He'll  help
    you,  not  because  he's  sorry  for  you, but because he's leaving the
    company next week, and he's bored.

    One day, you'll manage to wire it up right (or you  may  not;   many  a
    printer  is laying around unused because it can't be got to work with a
    new computer).  Now try to make it do something clever,  like  bold  or
    underline.   Now  is  the point at which you consult the manual to find
    out whether it isn't quite Epson compatible or whether it  isn't  quite
    Diablo  compatible  (most printers are not quite compatible with one of
    these two;  the exception is the HP Laserjet, which is only  not  quite
    compatible with other HP printers).

    The  main  area  of incompatibility is usually the graphics, unless you
    got the printer specifically for it's word processing ability, in which
    case it's the WP features.

    Your spreadsheet, word processor or other software will offer a menu of
    standard printers to save you trouble in installing yours.   If  you've
    chosen  carefully,  your  printer won't be on any of the menus, and you
    can have a lot of fun rummaging through the printer  manual  trying  to
    work  out  the escape sequences that the software installation demands.
    Alternatively, you can install the printer as an Epson  or  Diablo  and
    spend  many  happy  hours  discovering the ways in which it isn't quite
    compatible.  Make sure you have plenty of Tipp-ex at hand, and  a  good
    black Biro, for adding the finishing touches to your documents.

    Once  you've  got  the  printer working, and installed your software in
    such a way that it can control the printer properly,  you  might  think
    that your struggles with the printer are over.  Fortunately, no printer
    will submit so easily, and you can look forward to plenty more  printer
    fun.

    If  your  printer  is  getting  a  bit  boring, buy a sheet feeder, and
    rediscover the delights of spending hours working out why the  wretched
    thing  doesn't do what you expect.  One good trick is to start printing
    in the middle of each page.  Another favourite is to make  a  grinding,
    screeching noise in the middle of a 50-page printout - that's the noise
    that sheet feeders make while they eat your paper.   You  thought  that
    sheet feeders are so called because they feed sheets of paper into your
    printer?  No, the name comes from the way they eat  paper,  usually  in
    the middle of an important printout.

    Most  printers  have  a printer buffer.  Theoretically, this is a place
    where your printout goes before passing on to the print head;  it means
    you  get  the computer back sooner.  In practice, a printer buffer is a
    place where your printout goes, never to be seen again if  the  printer
    stops.

    Sticky labels can be the source of a lot of fun.  The best thing to do,
    is wind the carriage backwards, so that some of the labels come off and
    get stuck underneath.  Epson recommend that the resulting mess can only
    be fixed at the factory, but if you have a spare  weekend  and  a  good
    assortment  of  spanners and screwdrivers, you can do the job yourself.
    Make sure you have a matchbox to store the leftover screws and  springs
    after re-assembly.  Laser printers are even better;  the hot drum fuses
    the label intimately to anything it can.  After this, the  hours  spent
    fiddling around trying to line up labels accurately feels comparatively
    nice.


    If all you've got is a boring old Epson, you're missing out on the fun.
    Rush  out and buy yourself something more interesting from your nearest
    printer spiv, and join in with the fun that the rest of us are having.

    When I die and go to Hell, I know what  will  be  waiting  for  me.   A
    Humpty  Dumpty  PC  with  a "standard" "RS232" port, a Big-Ears printer
    with a "standard" "RS232" port and "full Epson compatibility", a manual
    written  by  an  illiterate Indonesian, and a requirement to get it all
    working together by tomorrow.