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Epson MX-80 Fonts

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Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#31

Post by Theodores »

0_-_0 wrote: post #9

Something isn't right with this, though. I don't remember if there was a "wide" mode, but this font, while it feels very accurate, is somehow stretched wider than what would have been default. Here's an image of something from an MX-80 that looks more like what I remember: https://technicallywewrite.com/images/2024/07/epson2.png (taken from https://technicallywewrite.com/2024/07/01/dotmatrix ). Still, thanks for shar…

It was a 1 x 9 print head and you could get 132 characters per line as well as the normal 80, plus variants such as 40 and 66 characters per line, where things must have been doubled up with the motor running at the same pitch, hence the 12x9 you refer to.

I only became familiar with the later FX-80, which was the same but different. I managed to get logos printed along with neat boxes around information from the extra characters it had in PCL.

I am sure NLQ was a selling point of the FX-80 but I would like to see how good it was on the MX-80. At the time printers from Epson, HP and Canon were miracles of engineering, more advanced than the computers they were connected to.

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#33

Post by jpl56 »

(looking at the "RX-80" box sitting next to my desk that contains student memories) This is a cool website, thanks for making this!

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#34

Post by wiredfool »

manosyja wrote: post #27
0_-_0 wrote: post #9

Something isn't right with this, though. I don't remember if there was a "wide" mode, but this font, while it feels very accurate, is somehow stretched wider than what would have been default. Here's an image of something from an MX-80 that looks more like what I remember: https://technicallywewrite.com/images/2024/07/epson2.png (taken from https://technicallywewrite.com/2024/07/01/dotmatrix ). Still, thanks for shar…

I remember my Star LC-10 had multiple fonts with different widths. There was regular, condensed, wide and NLQ (Near Letter Quality). The latter looked like it had been written on a typewriter.

I had a Star SG-10, labeled as "Epson Compatible". (Mostly)

The Near Letter Quality was essentially double struck by making a second pass at a slight offset, with the corresponding increase in noise and print times.

There wasn't support for the printer in AppleWorks, so my first useful program was a BASIC thing that you could set the font in the printer and then reboot into AppleWorks to use either the 10 cpi, 12, 17(condensed) or the NLQ setting.

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#35

Post by wiredfool »

dphnx wrote: post #19
0_-_0 wrote: post #9

Something isn't right with this, though. I don't remember if there was a "wide" mode, but this font, while it feels very accurate, is somehow stretched wider than what would have been default. Here's an image of something from an MX-80 that looks more like what I remember: https://technicallywewrite.com/images/2024/07/epson2.png (taken from https://technicallywewrite.com/2024/07/01/dotmatrix ). Still, thanks for shar…

Ah, so the characters we’re seeing here are twice as wide as they would be when printed? Adding some CSS to compress the page horizontally looks a lot closer to the first image you shared: html { transform: scaleX(50%); }

The font on the page is definitely too wide -- it should be taller than wide, and 10 characters per inch.

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#37

Post by lewiscollard »

bux93 wrote: post #15

>For best results, it is recommended to use these fonts with the following color scheme (as used here on this web page): > Foreground: black (#000000) (Ink) > Background: white (#FFFFFF) (Paper) What about the alternating green bars? And the perforation?

> What about the alternating green bars?

    body {
        background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, white 0%, white 1em, #7cb8a6 1em, #7cb8a6 calc(1em + 1px), #dbfcf5 calc(1em + 1px), #dbfcf5 calc(2em + 1px), #7cb8a6 calc(2em + 1px), #7cb8a6 calc(2em + 2px));
        background-size: 100% calc(2em + 2px);
    }
adjust colours to taste :) extra credit if you implement dark mode!

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#38

Post by mark-r »

whyenot wrote: post #12

In the late 1970s, my dad purchased an S-100 bus computer from Thinker Toys for about $3,000 (would be close to $15,000 today after adjusting for inflation). It had a Z80 microprocessor and ran CP/M. As was true of many hobbyist computers from this era, it came with full source code (in beautifully documented assembly) both for CP/M and for the BIOS. This was important because if you wanted to add peripherals or make…

If I remember correctly the serial port was an add-in card. Mine used the parallel connection.

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#39

Post by mark-r »

wiredfool wrote: post #35
dphnx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so the characters we’re seeing here are twice as wide as they would be when printed? Adding some CSS to compress the page horizontally looks a lot closer to the first image you shared: html { transform: scaleX(50%); }

The font on the page is definitely too wide -- it should be taller than wide, and 10 characters per inch.

I'm not sure the original MX-80 had square dots. Since they made this to be pixel accurate, the aspect ratio might be off because the MX-80 was off.

The key test is not how it looks on screen, but how it looks printed.

Re: Epson MX-80 Fonts

#40

Post by mark-r »

Theodores wrote: post #31
0_-_0 wrote: post #9

Something isn't right with this, though. I don't remember if there was a "wide" mode, but this font, while it feels very accurate, is somehow stretched wider than what would have been default. Here's an image of something from an MX-80 that looks more like what I remember: https://technicallywewrite.com/images/2024/07/epson2.png (taken from https://technicallywewrite.com/2024/07/01/dotmatrix ). Still, thanks for shar…

It was a 1 x 9 print head and you could get 132 characters per line as well as the normal 80, plus variants such as 40 and 66 characters per line, where things must have been doubled up with the motor running at the same pitch, hence the 12x9 you refer to. I only became familiar with the later FX-80, which was the same but different. I managed to get logos printed along with neat boxes around information from the ext…

I got the Graftrax option for my MX-80 so it could do arbitrary graphics without having to mess around with special characters.
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