laser-lovers@uw-beaver.UUCP (01/28/84)
From reid@Glacier Fri Jan 27 16:56:23 1984 Re: Terminology I have always preferred to use the term ``laser marking engine'' to describe something like the LBP-CX; it is not usable as a printer without the addition of a fairly complex controller. I like to use these terms: * marking engine: something that makes marks on paper, controlled by a fairly complex set of digital signals. There exist several marking engines that cost less than $2000 each, of which the Canon LBP-CX is one. * laser printer: a marking engine combined with a controller that can input the description of an image and some font prototypes and produce a printed page. Imagen showed a laser printer built out of the LBP-CX at a recent trade show. They asked me not to disclose its price. * laser printing system: a laser printer combined with appropriate fonts, font width tables, network spoolers, image file editors, and so forth. Re: Cheap laser printers The San Jose @i[ Mercury-News ], Silicon Valley's newspaper, in an article dated 25 January 1984, quoted Apple's John Sculley as saying that Apple would soon be introducing a laser printer for ``under $5000''. It stands to reason that such a laser printer would be based on a low-priced marking engine such as the LBP-CX. It also stands to reason that such a laser printer would be compatible with Apple computers, which is to say that it would not necessarily be compatible with other computers; Apple does not have a history of building industry-compatible computers or software. Re: Image quality The image quality from the LBP-CX is absolutely breathtaking. It is quite visibly better than the image quality from the Xerox XP-12 (a.k.a. QMS 1200, a.k.a. DEC LN01). I have some sample output from the LBP-CX that I was given by a European colleague, which was printed by Canon as part of a sales push for this device in Europe. It is difficult to imagine that a xerography-based 300BPI raster printer could be made to produce better output than this. Brian Reid Stanford
laser-lovers@uw-beaver.UUCP (02/01/84)
From Crean.HENR@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Tue Jan 31 16:55:44 1984 To: William G. Martin <WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA> cc: Laser-Lovers@WASHINGTON.ARPA ReSent-date: Tue 31 Jan 84 16:40:33-PST ReSent-from: Richard Furuta <Furuta@WASHINGTON.ARPA> ReSent-to: "Laser Lovers": ; The LBP-CX certainly is an important product announcement but the $695 is an OEM price to established vendors (e.g. Apple, HP, etc.) signing up to take maybe 100,000 over a few years. The MX-80 is probable $100-150 under the same conditions. This machine is based on the Canon PC-20 machine (the Jack Klugman (Quincy) advertisments) and likely comes without much interface (supplied by OEM). The copier goes for $1295 and the cartridges for $65 from Canon distributors in a high volume business. The prints I have seen from the machine are excellent though done in a simple Helvetica 8 or 10 point at 300 spi. Pete Crean