Re: Color (colour!) printing on IIgs

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

adrianw@ise.canberra.edu.au (Dr A.P. Whichello) wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Long time no write. My IIgs has passed on to my son. He's typing his
>first school project on it and wants to print the text in colour. I've
>put a colour riibbon in the Imagewriter II, but the dithering seems to
>make all the colours look awful. Is there any way of convincing a text
>processor like Hermes, Coolwriter or even Appleworks GS use only the
>pure colours on the Imagewriter's ribbon and not to try dithering them
>into mud? Thanks in advance,
>
>Adrian.

That's why I've been trying to tell users that no color printing
to Epson Stylus or Canon BubbleJet printers through Harmonie
is no big deal.  I've seen color printing on the IIGS and have
decided that it just does not look that good.  Even if I had a
DeskJet, I would most likely not use color print.

That said, however, you may want to replace your IWII with a
DeskJet or a DeskWriter.  I've seen DeskWriters at Goodwill
going for $10.  Color DeskWriters.  With the addition of the
Harmonie drivers from http://www.crl.com/~joko and your
existing IWII cable, you can get better color that the IWII can
provide.

The reason?  When colors dither on an ink-jet printer, the
ink actually mixes resulting in a blend.  In an impact dot
matrix printer like the IWII, the dots remain separate.  The
mixed colors of the ink-jet printer still does not look exactly
vibrant, but it is infinitely better than what the IWII provides.