1 - Commodore Is Awesome

Jason C p on
reviews Fargo's
new colour
printer
'printer' evokes mental images of
noisy dot-matrix affairs which
O generated letters and envelopes
f (if you were lucky), with grainy, functional
ytext.
If you're new-school, the term 'printer'
oevokes
mental images of
uwhirring
laser and inkjet print-
'ers
which turn out fancy let-
rterhead
and smooth fonts. So
e
the conventional wisdom
ogoes.
l
At Fargo, printers aren't for
agendas or schedules or bor-
d
ing letters in black and white.
-
They're for colour, and lots of
sit.
Fargo's Primera line sets standards for
chigh-end
professional applications, and is a
hfavourite
of computer dealers looking to con-
ovince
people that computers are indispensi-
oble
tools.
l Fargo has now taken its experience and
, put it in a consumer-level product. The
tFotolUN
is a physically unimpressive device,
ha
small white breadbin with only a couple of
e
buttons and a slot on the front to make any
difference. But inside is a dye-sublimation
t
printer capable of turning out full-colour pho-
e
tographic-style prints of your favourite com-
rputer
pictures in just about two minutes.
m There are a number of techniques that can
be used to get colour onto paper. The
FotoFUN's dye-sublimation uses heat and a
special cellophane-like ribbon to create living
colours on a 4" x 6" piece of photographic
paper specially supplied by Fargo. Each ribbon
comes with 36 pieces of photo paper,
and lasts just long enough to complete the
M
E
A
N
S
A
N
D
set. There are no user-serviceable moving
parts in the inside of the printer. The FotoFUN
is a somewhat unusual printer in that it is not
set up to accept a wide variety of media. Most
printers, be they dot matrix, laser, or inkjet
can accept different paper of different
colours, along with envelopes and other
paper products, but the FotoFUN exists solely
to transfer photos and images from your
computer onto film-type glossy paper.
The printer connects to the Amiga through
the parallel port. There is an Amiga driver for
the printer but, unfortunately, it is not
shipped with the product_ Instead, a program
must be obtained from Fargo and paired with
the special driver keyfile from the included PC
driver disk. This is not exactly convenient, but
it is worth the effort Once your driver is properly
installed, you can use a GUI interface to
set certain preferences of the printer, such as
the darkness of the final print and whether or
not you want a clear protective layer added to
the final photo. That taken care of, it is then
ready for your images.
As mentioned before, the printer can han-
What's the printer good for? Well, if you have a scanner and want to alter images and re-print them, spending a
little time in ImageR or another image processing program and then outputting to the FotoFUN would be a good
way to work. If you're a PhotoCD buff, you can use the FotoFUN to get 'hard copy' of some of your favourite pictures.
Then there's the FotoMug kit, which allows you to create coffee mugs with any picture on them by baking
a FotoFUN print onto a specially coated mug. It's actually fairly inexpensive to do and takes only 15 minutes in
the oven. Or, if you're a postcard buff, Fargo can provide you with special postcard print paper so you can create
your own message.
The FotoFUN isn't for everyone — it's pretty much a one-track mind device. However, it's a neat device and certainly
worth a look if you think you might need colour printing for your archives, presentations, or business.
AMIGA COMPUTING
sTOBER 1 996
die 4 x 6' photo paper. To crop (make suitable
for printing) a computer image can be
frustrating sometimes. However, I recommend
ImageFX because it also includes an
expanded driver for the FotoFUN printer in
version 2.6. If you don't have ImageFX 2.6,
you can simply copy or save IFF images to the
FotoRIN device created by the driver_
Each print sent through the FotoFLIN takes
about two minutes and costs roughly SI for
the customer, who has to buy ribbons and
prints together for 36 individual cameras. This
is a fairly expensive way to get photo-quality
colour images, but the convenience of doing
it from your home shouldn't be under-estimated.
Bottom
une
PRODUCT DETAILS
Product F o t o F U N
Supplier F a r g o Electronics
Price 1 5 4 9 9 ARP
Tel P h o n e : 001 612 941 9470
(US readers 1 BOO 327 4622)
Fax: 001 612 941 7836
SCORES
Ease of use 7 1 %
Implementation 9 0 %
Value For Money W A
Overall I N % r-a—.