Classic Computer Magazine Archive COMPUTE! ISSUE 21 / FEBRUARY 1982 / PAGE 183

New From Commodore

Valley Forge, PA, Nov. 12, 1981 – Commodore Business Machines has introduced its newest printer, the low-cost, high-speed CBM 8023P.

This latest addition to the growing line of CBM peripherals is a bidirectional, 136-column printer with both tractor and friction feed. The 8023P is dot-matrix, and prints 150 characters-per-second (CPS). It is available through Commodore dealers throughout the nation for $995.00.

The new CBM printer is designed to operate through software control, prints upper and lower case alphabetic characters, all graphic characters available with a Commodore computer, as well as user-defined characters.

The 8023P conforms to IEEE interface requirements and connects directly to a Commodore computer. It is designed to be used with the CBM floppy disk drives, and may be daisy-chained with other IEEE-488 devices.

Because the printer is an "intelligent" peripheral, it uses none of the computer's memory. In addition, the 8023P contains Random Access memory (RAM), which permits storage of formatting data.

A programmable character set and gamegraphics editor on cassette has been introduced by Commodore Business Machines, Inc., for users of its VIC 20™ personal computer.

Now available at authorized Commodore dealers throughout the nation for $14.95, the character set editor comes with a 16-page instruction manual and allows VIC users to create groups of 64, 128, or 192 programmable characters at a time and use them in BASIC programs. Each group of characters takes only one-half kilobyte (0.5K) of program space.

With the new character editor, Commodore VIC 20 users can create their own character set and easily modify letters, numbers, and graphics to include foreign language letters, mathematic and scientific symbols, or special "arcade" game graphics.

Commodore's new character set editor also allows VIC 20 users to save their newly-created character set on tape or disk for future use, and then easily insert the set in a BASIC program.

Along with the character set editor, also new from Commodore is the recently-introduced VIC 1515 low-cost dot-matrix printer. Available for $395, the VIC 1515 has a printing speed of 30 CPS, and prints any of the alphabetic, numeric, and graphic symbols common to the VIC.