A seven-colour ink-jet printer with the unfortunate name of Squirt promises to be one of the hottest properties out of Hewlett-Packard this year. Due to be unveiled in the summer, the small footprint device is expected to list for about $1,500 and will enable letter quality text from a choice of fonts to be merged with seven-colour graphics. It takes about 45 seconds to print a page of text and three-and-a-half minutes to print a page of colour graphics. Text resolution is expected to be about 180 dots per inch, with colour at 90 pixels per inch. The colour is supplied by disposable $30 thermal ink cartridges which handle about 80 pages for colour, for a cost of about 20 cents a page; in text mode, one cartridge of black will do about 600 pages. The printer, also suitable for making your overhead foils look really professional, will come with Centronics, RS232 and Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus ports.
