laser-lovers@uw-beaver (01/30/85)
From: Richard Furuta <Furuta@WASHINGTON.ARPA> I spoke with Joe Mann of QMS today on the telephone. Unfortunately, I've left my notes at school so I'm reporting on memory. If I leave out anything, I'll post a followup tomorrow. QMS has announced their 1200A which is the XP-12 marking engine from Xerox with the Adobe interface. They have priced it at 20% about the 1200 which places it at $30,000. An upgrade for an existing QMS 1200 is available for the 20% (around $5,000). The XP-12 has a speed of 12 pages/minute, a pretty good sized paper tray, and a rated monthly use of 15,000 pages, if I remember my statistics correctly. As with the LaserWriter, the QMS 1200 uses a 68000 to implement PostScript. It has 500KBytes of RAM (the LaserWriter has 1.5 Megabytes) and the 500KByte ROM. The interface is RS232. Joe Mann says that the printer slows down when handling complex pages with lots of graphics but that it runs at full speed for pages of 5,000 characters or less. There are six units out in beta test now. (Anyone with one want to comment on it?) They expect to be in full production and shipping by the end of February (a bit before the LaserWriter becomes available). They next plan on developing the interface for the 800A and then the 2400A. They expect that both of these will be pretty easy to do and expect to have the development done within a month. Pricing is also expected to be 20% above the comperable preexisting unit. I asked why they were doing the 800A next since it directly competes with the Apple LaserWriter (both are based on the Canon CX marking engine). Joe Mann's response what that QMS wanted to have a family of products and the architecture of the Canon marking engine was significantly different from the Xerox-based 1200 and 2400. They expect that the 2400A's controller will very similar to or the same as the 1200A's and they want to give themselves some extra time to do the different 800A controller. He also admitted that the $12,000 target price for the 800A was not very firm and that it would probably be hard to hold in in light of the LaserWriter's price. They also see a sizable market for the 1200A and the 2400A on the AppleTalk network since apparently you are limited to having only one printer on the network, itself. He says that they plan to exhibit the PostScript products at "the OA conference in Atlanta next week." He says they'll be driving it with both Macintosh and also IBM PC. If anyone goes, post a report. Does anyone have more information about the Linotype PostScript products? --Rick -------
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (01/30/85)
From: Christopher A Kent <cak@PURDUE.ARPA> We've been wondering about the expected lifetime of the QMS 2400. As I understand it, it's just an XP12 engine brought up (tuned, if you will) to the original design speed. If QMS can do it, why hasn't anyone else (like Xerox)? How long have these units been in the field? Can they be expected to be the never-failing workhorses that the 1200s are, or will they end their lives early, burned out from running too fast? Has anyone really beat on a 2400 to get a good feel for this? chris ----------
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (01/31/85)
From: Dan Tappan <Tappan@BBNG.ARPA> The engine that is in the QMS 2400 is not the same as in the 1200. Xerox released it to OEM's before producing their own printer using it. When Xerox does release one it will be called the 3700 (according to our Xerox salesman). Besides being heavier duty cycle the 2400 has a much larger paper feeder - 2000 sheets. In general our 2400 has been quite reliable - the only problem is that the Xerox service-people have not yet been trained for the 3700, so we have to rely on QMS for service. -------