laser-lovers@uw-beaver (10/31/85)
From: John Lloyd <jl%dac.triumf.cdn%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. LN01s are
o unreliable
o difficult to program
o inflexible
o expensive to get fonts for (only Xerox and DEC sell them, the
font format is Xerox proprietary, and DEC doesn't even tell you
that much.)
(Although DEC did sell a font editor, which allows the curious and
those capable of decoding hex dumps an opportunity to figure it out)
Re point 2: They print a font in either Landscape or Portrait. Want a
particular font that you have in Landscape to come out Portrait? You
must rotate it, rename it, and load it in. Parkinsons Law applies (All
the fonts fit to print won't fit in it.)
We bought three. Need I say more.
Now, as to LN03s, these are
o reliable, easy to fix (most printing hardware is swapped on reloading
the consumables)
o easier to program
o inflexible
o hard to get fonts for (although DEC Does publish the CFFF, available
through your local rep or from info in a previous posting). I under-
stand that there is a lot of stuff for TeX, dvi (whatever that is, etc)
but it seems remote to me.
Re point 2: Easier to program, although impossible to read the manual. IF
you have the PRELIMINARY LN03 MANUAL, THROW IT OUT. It lies. The glossy
spiral bound "official" copy comes with a 14 page corrigendum.
It is a little more flexible, because it lets you specify pitch, bold,
and even orientation independantly. It will even rotate a font automajically,
although how it manages its RAM is a mystery (zero descriptions).
We have a total of 1 LN03, with a bunch on order.
Summary:
They aren't interchangeable. The LN03 has better, more consistant print
quality. It's power specification is untrue: there is a 500 watt heater
in it that kicks in every minute or so for 5 seconds (dimmed lights in
a whole office block until we found it -- ever see a DECSA run on 70 volts ac?)
Regarding the LN01S model, I have no experience. I would not recommend
buying anything with a Xerox 2700 print engine in it (LN01, QMS 1200, etc etc)
unless you can get a qualified Xerox rep to fix it, and he has lots of
these machines to practise on. We run upwards of 15k sheets per month
on all three LN01s, and they require constant tuning to maintain a dark
black over a large area (5mm box say). Our service is from Digital, and
we (stupidly) just hired the service rep to work for us!
John