[mod.computers.laser-printers] Dec shows unannounced 40 pages/minute PostScript Printer

furuta@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Richard Furuta) (05/27/86)

This message may be of interest to laser-lovers.

					--Rick

	To: info-postscript@SU-SCORE
	From: William "Chops" Westfield <BILLW@SU-SCORE>
	Mail-From: BILLW created at 15-May-86 19:26:27
	Date: Thu 15 May 86 19:26:27-PDT
	Subject: DEC shows unannounced Postscript printer at DECUS...
	
	At the DALAS DECUS, the DEC printer group was running a
	"Printserver 40", a 40 page-per-minute Postscript laser printer.
	It looked sort of nice....
	
	the PS40 connects to your ethernet.  It contains a uVax II processor
	with hardware assist for Postscript.  The 40 ppm figure is based
	on pages of text for which all the characters are in the font cache.
	Stuff printed in black on this printer was VERY black.  The thing
	has several deep paper trays, holding paper sizes up to 11x17.
	
	Now for the bad news.  The uvax runs Vaxelan (Real Time VMS, sort of),
	and only talks DECNET (and Maybe LAT) protocols.  A lot of people
	yelled at them for this, so maybe by the time the gadget is actually
	anounced as a product, it will also talk something more reasonable
	like TCP.  So far, the formatting software only runs under VMS (but
	of course it already exists for many other OSes).  The thing is
	supposed to be "competatively" priced, which I think means "expensive",
	since there aren't any chgeap printers in that performance range.
	
	BillW
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