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Category:Printers
This page was last modified 12:31, 22 April 2019 by Mars2000you. Based on work by Rderooy and Gdx.

Contents

Description

MSX compatible printers can be divided into two categories, those that support one of the MSX Character sets, and those that don't.

Printers that support the MSX character set will normally be able to print all the special characters, assuming that both the MSX and printer use the same MSX character set. Using a Japanese MSX with Japanese character set with a European printer with International character set will generally work fine for the lower 128 characters (7 bit ASCII), but the upper characters (high ASCII) will show different on screen and printed.

Printers that don't support the MSX Character set will also generally work fine for the lower 128 characters, as those are typically the same on most computers. But the upper 128 will not be the same.

Note that there is no standard in control codes amongst MSX compatible printers, every manufacturer had its own control codes for things like bold, italic, etc.

Most of these issues can be worked around by using an application like Dynamic Publisher to print. Dynamic publisher will not simply send text characters to the printer to print, but will print in graphical mode, meaning that the computer will tell the printer how to print, dot by dot. The problem with that is, that once again there was no industry standard on how to print in graphical mode, so the application needs to specifically support the printer.

Printers with MSX Character sets

These printers have support for one of the MSX Character sets.

Product Character set Kanji-ROM Type
Brother HR-5X Japanese Thermal Transfer B/W
Brother HR-6X Japanese JIS1 (*) Thermal Transfer B/W
Brother M-1009X Japanese Dot Matrix B/W
Brother M-1024X Japanese Dot Matrix B/W
Canon T-22 Japanese Thermal B/W
Canon T-22A Int. or JP Thermal B/W
Casio CP-7 Japanese 7 Color
Epson PI-40 Japanese 7 Color
Hitachi MPP-1021H Japanese Thermal B/W
National CF-2301 Japanese Thermal B/W
National CF-2311 Japanese Plotter
National FS-P200 Japanese 7 Color
Panasonic FS-PA1 Japanese JIS1 + JIS2 Thermal Transfer B/W
Panasonic FS-PC1 Japanese JIS1 + JIS2 Thermal Transfer Color
Panasonic FS-PK1 Japanese JIS1 Thermal Transfer B/W
Philips NMS 1421 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Philips NMS 1431 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Philips NMS 1436 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Philips VW 0010 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Philips VW 0020 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Philips VW 0030 International Dot-Matrix Impact B/W
Sakhr AP-120 Arabic ? ?
Sanyo MPT-C10 Japanese Thermal Transfer Color
Sanyo MPT-T5 Japanese Thermal B/W
Sanyo SMP-30 Int. or JP 4 Color Plotter
Seikosha GP-50MX Japanese Dot Matrix B/W
Sony HBP-F1 Japanese Thermal Transfer B/W
Sony HBP-F1C Japanese Thermal Transfer Color
Sony PRN-C41 Int. or JP 4 color plotter
Sony PRN-M09 International Dot-Matrix B/W
Sony PRN-M24 Japanese Dot-Matrix B/W
Toshiba HX-P550 Int. or JP Dot-Matrix B/W
Toshiba HX-P570 International 4 color plotter
Yamaha PN-01 Japanese Dot-Matrix B/W
Yamaha PN-101 International Dot-Matrix B/W

(*) Cartridge Brother KR-6X

Printers without MSX Character sets

MSX uses a parallel printer port that is compatible with standard parallel printers of the era. For instance printers targeted for use with IBM PC compatibles will work with the MSX. The issue is that they lack the MSX character set, which mainly effects the so-called high-ASCII characters when printing pure text. When printing in graphics mode, it is dependent on the software. A program like Dynamic Publisher, which prints in graphical mode and therefor it does not matter which character set the MSX or printer has, supports various non-MSX printers.

Alternatively some printers with sufficient RAM allow the user to upload a new character set, which would allow a non-MSX printer to print the MSX character set until the printer was reset. The problem is that some software programs issue a reset to the printer before starting the print job, causing the printer to loose the MSX character set and revert to the integrated character set.

Word Processor printers

These printers only work with a special word processor cartridge, and cannot be used from other programs.

Product Description Kanji-ROM Type
Casio MW-24 JWP JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
Panasonic FS-PW1 JWP JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W


MSX with integrated printer

A few MSX machines have an integrated printer. These were mainly released in Japan.

Product Generation Character set Kanji-ROM Type
National FS-4000 MSX1 Japanese JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
National FS-4500 MSX2 Japanese JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
National FS-4600F MSX2 Japanese JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
National FS-4700 MSX2 Japanese JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
Panasonic FS-3900 MSX1 International Thermal transfer B/W
Sanyo PHC-77 MSX2 Japanese JIS1 Thermal transfer B/W
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