laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (10/04/84)
From: furuta@uw-june.arpa (Richard Furuta) Recently, I've begun to see a certain amount of discussion of the HP LaserJet printer on other lists. This one comes from Usenet's net.text --Rick From kentm@byucsa.UUCP (Montgomery Kent Melvin) Sat Feb 5 22:28:16 206 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-june Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site byucsa.UUCP Path: uw-june!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!houxm!ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!hplabs!hao!seismo!utah-cs!beesvax!byucsa!kentm From: kentm@byucsa.UUCP (Montgomery Kent Melvin) Newsgroups: net.text,net.periphs,net.micro.hp Subject: HP LaserJet Answers (& remailing request) Message-ID: <221@byucsa.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Sep-84 13:20:22 PDT Article-I.D.: byucsa.221 Posted: Thu Sep 13 13:20:22 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 00:02:05 PDT Organization: BYU Compter Science -- Provo UT Lines: 91 On Friday, Sept. 13 I posted an article titled "HP LaserJet Inquiries". Thanks to those who responded. Unfortunately though, problems with disk failures here erased two days worth of unread mail. The mail replies I did receive were: From beesvax!utah-cs!seismo!umcp-cs!mark From beesvax!utah-cs!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!lwt1 From beesvax!allegra!harpo!hp-pcd!hpcvln!tw From beesvax!utah-cs!seismo!mcvax!vu44!tjalk!keie From utah-cs!harpo!whuxb!ihnp4!gargoyle!toby If any others sent me mail, please remail to me. The systems programmers here assure me that the disk problems are fixed. The following are from the replies I have received to date: ------------------------------ >> ... We can thus print the unavailable math characters by sending >> to the printer a raster pattern (such as those used by vtroff) >> for each character... Has anyone out there attempted such a mixture >> of text and rasters? > I have mixed raster images and text on a single page. I have not done > anything elaborate (such as a character set), but I can see no real > problems. > Software-wise, you've already caught the only major problem, which is the > memory limit on rasters. There shouldn't be any problem with lots of small > rasters, though. ------------------------------- >> Also, has anyone had success or failure at connecting the LaserJet >> printer to a DEC Micro-VAX or similar computer. > Any RS-232 driver (such as a terminal driver) should > work fine. You will, of course, have to write a filter to translate > troff output to LaserJet escape sequences. > The laserJet supports RS-232C and RS-422 -- note that this "support" > consists of only 4 lines (signal ground, hard ground, received data, and > transmited data [pins 1,2,3, & 7]), at 9600 baud ONLY - "The LaserJet printer > is factory set for 9600 baud - to change your printer`s baud rate, call your > HP Dealer", and Xon/Xoff. > There shouldn't be any reason that what you want to do is impossible. The > LaserJet is indeed RS-232C, so you should be able to hook it up to any > interface that supports (say) a terminal. One potential problem is that the > printer is nonconfigurable in that it insists on running at 9600 baud 8 > bits, so if you can't deal with that, you may be in trouble. --------------------- >> Finally, is anyone aware of any weaknesses or limitations of the >> LaserJet printer that the manual or promotional material does not reveal? > 1) The 100 sheet paper tray will really take only 100 sheets (there just > is no more room). > 2) The output tray will properly stack only about 50 sheets. > 3) You must reset the default vertical spacing (among other things) (via > escape sequences) if you want 66 printed lines per page. > 4) The LaserJet does not expand tabs (they are ignored). > The paper feed is ONE U-turn. This means that you put the paper upside down > in the tray (ok, big deal), AND that when a mulit-page job comes > out it is stacked in reverse order: ===================================================== We have gone ahead and ordered the LaserJet. We will be writing a driver for either troff or ditroff that mixes HP text with vtroff text from the host VAX. This driver will probably access a user-created file that maps the troff output characters to either HP font characters or UNIX vtroff font characters. Typical lines in this file might be: map font=R,size=10,chars=[A-Z,0-9,a-z] to HP,size=9,style=bold,\ orientation=portrait,... map font=S,size=8,chars=[^A,^D,\] to VTROFF,file=/usr/lib/vfont/S.12,\ hp_resolution=300,... If anyone is interested in such a program (available in 3-4 weeks), let me know and I will mail it (or post to net.sources if sufficient interest). If you would like to participate in the design, let me know. Thanks, Kent M. Montgomery ...|harpo \ Computer Science Dept. |utah-cs|beesvax|byucsa|kentm Brigham Young University ...|seismo / (UPI #6, AP #8)