laser-lovers@uw-beaver (05/21/85)
From: Brian Reid <reid@Glacier> We have two QMS PostScript printers, model 1200A, in our building. I bought them as "Beta test" machines. "Our building" is the Stanford Center for Integrated Systems. When they are working, they can print more or less anything that the Apple LaserWriter can print, from the exact same PostScript file. The only difference is in halftone images. Because of the nature of the fuser in the underlying Xerox XP12 print engine, it is impossible to print light shades of halftone gray (the light gray color prevents the toner from getting hot enough to fuse to the paper, and it just rubs off). With that single exception, the QMS 1200A can print any image that the Apple LaserWriter can print, though the image quality is not, in my opinion, as good as the Apple. My problem with the QMS 1200A is that it is down all the time. We have had these two machines since early April. We call them Danjou and Bartlett. Bartlett has been up a total of 3 or 4 hours during the entire 6-week period that we have had it; Danjou is more reliable, but still crashes mysteriously at regular intervals and is down for 4 to 6 hours each week. I think that the problem is not so much with the printer itself as with the field reps who installed it and who "maintain" it, as I have heard from many other QMS owners (in other parts of the country) who do not have these problems. It is in a sense unfair to describe experience with Beta-test machines as representative of the reliability of the finished machines, but that's all we've got; I think it is all that anybody has got. My local hardware people tell me that the problems are all electro- mechanical--circuit board seating, loose wires, boards that don't work, etc. I can ask them to provide exact details if anybody cares. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA