laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (11/30/84)
From: (Bill Johnston [csam]) johnston@lbl-csam.arpa We are considering replacing all of our central facility impact printers (~900 line/min CDC and IBM printers) with a collection of 25-40 page/minute laser printers. We currently have several small Cannon based (Imagen and QMS) laser printers and would like to stay at 300 dpi, but would consider 240dpi if we have to, and if the print quality is good. We would also like controllers which can do full page bit maps so that graphics is possible. I have several questions: 1) I am aware of two laser printers which might fill the bill, namely the QMS-2400 and a Holoscan 24 page/min device. Are there any others that we should look at. (We don't like the output quality of the Imagen Delfax device.) 2) Does anyone have experience with such devices in this application (high volume, central facility printer). Thanks, Bill [johnston@lbl-csam] 415/486-5014
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/01/84)
From: Stuart Friedberg <stuart@rochester.arpa>
I would suggest looking into the high-volume laser printers marketed by
Xerox and IBM. I'm not sure exactly what IBM's models are but their
high-end printer is good for 2 or more pages a SECOND. Xerox has a
wide range of capabilities with their models 5700, 8700 and 9700.
The 9700 is also good for 1.5 or a little over 2 pages a second (don't
remember which, but probably the larger (135 ppm)).
Your local IBM and Xerox reps should be able to help you if you make
it clear that you are interested in laser printers, not whatever the
local reps happen to be good at selling. You may well find a smaller
model suits your needs pretty closely.
Stu Friedberg stuart@rochester {seismo,allegra}!rochester!stuartlaser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/01/84)
From: John S. Labovitz <hnij@bnl.arpa>
If the Holoscan is the General Optronics Holoscan 28, DON'T GET IT!
We had one for a while (still have it, actually, but I'll get to
that). When we first got it, it seemed OK, except that the manual
was done with either a typewriter or a very bad daisy-wheel. That's
not a good sign if you manufacture letter-quality printers.
Anyway, after using it for a couple of months, and having a few
problems (can't remember offhand what they were, but not major), it
started giving REALLY bad output. Like raster lines all over the
page, things smearing, just gross. So, we got it fixed (I've
forgotten what exactly was wrong).
In the meantime, I had played around with some of the "features,"
like downloading fonts, graphics, forms software, reverse "video,"
and other neat stuff, I found that most of it did not work at all,
or only worked in a specific mode. Blah.
Later, it died again. Repair-people came in to fix it, and couldn't
that day (needed some tool they didn't have), so they said "We'll
be back tomorrow." They never came back. Finally, after we got an
Imagen, we moved the Holoscan out to a storage room. It's been there
since August. We never paid for it (it was on trial) and they never
called. Today (coincedence, eh?) management decided to spend money
to send it back, just to get it out of the way.
As you can see, we didn't have good luck with it. However, we've got
a Royal 2800 now (20 ppm). It's GREAT! We've done 27k pages in 2
months, and it's only been serviced 2 or 3 times (our model was an
early one, and the power supply was wired wrong, so the power supply
blew out once). I think the price is 25k or so.
@hnij@ John S. Labovitz hnij@bnl.arpalaser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/03/84)
From: allegra!watmath!watdcsu!herbie@uw-beaver.arpa (Herb Chong, Computing Services) IBM's printer in the range you are looking at is the 3800 Model 3. It costs at least as much as the Xerox 9700 and is capable of 640 pixels/inch resolution. It is a continuous forms printer. See your IBM marketing rep for more information.
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/03/84)
From: udenva!hao!ben@lbl-csam.arpa (Ben Domenico) Imagen has, or is working on, connect a 40 ppm printer to their frontend box. I don't have their address, but they are on the net somewhere. We're about to move in the same direction and Imagen seems to have a nice graphics interface and spooling system as well as line printer and text processing support.
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/03/84)
From: tektronix!decvax!uucp@uw-beaver.arpa
It might be more expensive than you want to deal with, but IBM printers can
be replaced by Xerox 8700 and 9700 printers equiped with a channel interface.
Darrel J. Van Buer, PhD
System Development Corp.
2500 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90406
(213)820-4111 x5449
...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,orstcs,sdcsvax,ucla-cs,akgua}
!sdcrdcf!darrelj
VANBUER@USC-ECL.ARPAlaser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/04/84)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@uw-beaver.arpa > From: Stuart Friedberg <stuart@rochester.arpa> > I would suggest looking into the high-volume laser printers marketed by > Xerox and IBM. I'm not sure exactly what IBM's models are but their > high-end printer is good for 2 or more pages a SECOND. Xerox has a > wide range of capabilities with their models 5700, 8700 and 9700. > The 9700 is also good for 1.5 or a little over 2 pages a second (don't > remember which, but probably the larger (135 ppm)). The trouble is, both companies' printers are big dumb fast line printers, period. Lots of fonts, high speed, impressive marketing brochures, but they're useless as graphics or typesetting machines. The 9700 is great for production runs of documents using simple monospace fonts, but that's about it. I'm told the IBM printers are, if anything, worse.
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/05/84)
From: Bob Larson <BLARSON%ECLD@usc-ecl.arpa> The Xerox 9700 is useful for doing more than just "documents using simple monospace fonts". You just need a document formatter that supports it. Scribe (from Unilogic) is the only one that I know of. If you can afford a 9700 the price of scribe probably won't scare you too much. It's available for Tops20, Vax (Vms and probably Unix), Prime, and probably others. Since Unilogic got internal documentation for the 2700 from xerox in order to be able to drive it, I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same for the 9700. None of this is from personal experience, I'm stuck with the 2700's. (The 8700 at Usc is hooked to a computer by a company with 3 letters in its name that gives me the blues. (Being used as a high speed line printer!)) Bob Larson <Blarson@Usc-Ecl.Arpa> -------
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (12/05/84)
From: "Paul D. Stachour" <Stachour@HI-MULTICS.ARPA> 1) IBM and Xerox are not the only companies that sell laser-type page-printing systems. Honeywell sells page-printing systems also. Besides our own GOCS3/8, CP6, and Multics systems, they have also been used as page-printers for IBM MVS and other mainframes. 2) Scribe is not the only text-formatter that knows how to format "nicely" for the xerox9700. Compose, a text-formatter sold with Honeywell Multics, has output drivers for the x9700 also. 3) Don't discount the smaller laser printers. I'm just finishing up my first device-table and device-writer extensions to compose for the xerox2700-ii (I decided not to try for the 2700-i; too incomplete). I'm already turning out documents with 10-12 used in them. ...Paul (Paul Stachour, Honeywell CSC)