furuta@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Richard Furuta) (09/12/86)
The following note went out on Info-PostScript:
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 86 21:49:14 PDT
From: rex@usgs3-vms.arpa
Resent-Date: Wed 10 Sep 86 09:32:24-PDT
Resent-From: Info-PostScript-Request <Info-PostScript-REQUEST@sushi.stanford.edu>
Resent-To: ;@info-postscript
Computerworld, September 8, page 10, in an article covering the Seybold
Desktop Publishing Seminars, mentions a new PostScript printer.
Agfa-Gaevert announced a 400dpi, 16 ppm ("although it slows with heavily
graphic pages"), $28k printer to be available in January, but they haven't
lined up a US distributor.
-- Rex
(I have no financial [or other] relationship to the entities mentioned above)
I also received a press release on this printer. Interesting points
from the press release are:
- The printer uses "LED array electro-photographic marking
technology."
- "The Agfa P400PS printer is the first PostScript-intelligent
printer developed by Agfa-Gevaert under its contractual agreement with
Adobe Systems. The Agfa P400PS is the first printer equipped with the
Adobe 'Atlas' controller based on the 68020 processor and is able to
print up to 18 changing pages per minute. The printer has a user
accessible 20 Mbyte Winchester disk, 1Mbyte font cache, and two 2 Mbyte
bit map memory. While one page is being printed, the next page is
being prepared. The printer supports RS232C, RS422, Centronics
parallel, and AppleTalk communication protocols, and comes with an
extensive set of built-in typefaces including the standard 13
typefaces from the Helvetica, Times, Courier, and Symbol type
families."
- This is the thirteenth currently announced PostScript printer.
Adobe says, "Announcements of several additional PostScript printers
will be shortly forthcoming."
--Rickjaap@mcvax.UUCP (Jaap Akkerhuis) (09/15/86)
The following note went out on Info-PostScript:
Agfa-Gaevert announced a 400dpi, 16 ppm ("although it slows with heavily
etc.
-- Rex
I also received a press release on this printer. Interesting points
from the press release are:
- The printer uses "LED array electro-photographic marking
technology."
- "The Agfa P400PS printer is the first PostScript-intelligent
printer developed by Agfa-Gevaert under its contractual agreement with
Adobe Systems. The Agfa P400PS is the first printer equipped with the
Adobe 'Atlas' controller based on the 68020 processor and is able to
etc.
--Rick
The P400 printer has been around Europe for a while.
The concept of the LED-array (actually not 400 dpi but 404 or so)
always looked neat to me, as well as the large input bin (2000
pages, an extra (smaller) bin for special paper for banner
pages etc..
I never considered it as a serious printer because the interface
they gave you was unbelievable stupid. Most of the limitations
came from the hardware.
I have told them several times that the printer would be nice if
they could provide a sensible interface, like PostScript. The
standard answer to this was always: "We have the best Interface
of the world, and everybody, including Adobe, will follow us".
So I'm amazed by this announcement. I will try to find out on
this end if the machine is really working or just in the (re-)design
stage. Apparently they changed the hardware and kept the printing
engine, because under the old system there was no way
that you could be anything sensible with it.
jaapDRF@SU-SCORE.ARPA (David Fuchs) (09/15/86)
AGFA was showing their 400dpi printer at the Seybold meeting a week ago. They only had a few different sample pages printing, and they seemed much more jaggey than you'd expect from 400 dots/inch. Although the blacks were very black (like on the Xerox 2700), the type just didn't look as good as on a Canon CX engine. I asked the fellow in the booth whether the machine was tuned up properly, and he said "yes". After waiting all this time for a higer-than-300-resolution printer, it was quite disappointing. Perhaps some of the real experts out in net-land would care to comment on the output quality of the AGFA? -david -------