KB13@TE.CC.CMU.EDU.UUCP (05/10/86)
The silence is deafening concerning this machine. Is anyone
out there using it? How is it working? Is it faster, slower, better,
worse... than the Apple LaserWriter? Those of us who had the
opportunity to beta-test QMS' first PostScript attempt, the 1200-A,
and who are not testing the PS-800 are curious.
Reply to me directly and I'll summarize to the net.
-Ken Burner
KB13@TE.CC.CMU.EDU
PS- Info-Postscript seems not to be appearing in Laser-Lovers anymore.
Did you decide to stop including it, Rick, or has there been no
activity there?
[[Editor's note: It's my fault, sorry. Info-PostScript has been
modestly active but I've been swamped again. I'll try to get a digest
out sometime soon. --Rick ]]
-------saj@PREP.AI.MIT.EDU.UUCP (05/16/86)
Sorry to have been so silent on this mailing list about QMS printers... they deserve some free publicity because they've done such a great job. Here are my responses to recent queries about which printer one should buy. These are my personal opinions. I won't be too specific since your hardware/software configuration is sufficiently different from ours. First, I'll give you some gut feelings about the companies you mentioned. Remember that printers do break and that you need to consider the type of company you will be dealing with when things go wrong. DEC is a computer company. They don't know how to make laser printers, and when they OEM someone else's printers, they don't know how to fix them. I speak from experience. Imagen makes reasonable printers, but I would have to say that they are one of the worst companies to deal with when something doesn't work right. Imagen seems to think they know all the answers and that their customers should learn to accept what is "best" for them. One advantage (debatable) that Imagen claims to have is direct connection to Ethernet. I don't see this as much of an advantage since host computers have to have fonts, filters, and formatters anyway. The network connection also increases the price of their hardware. The Laboratory for Computer Science here at MIT has a couple of Imagen printers, and I know that there is a significant faction of users who are not happy with their printers. Xerox makes excellent print engines, but I'm not sure I'd buy a printer from them because, on the whole, they seem to have a poor price/performance ratio. I could be wrong. I once heard that Xerox claimed that all of their printers supported interpress... that would be a big win, but I'd check carefully before buying. We chose to go with QMS a year ago and, boy, are we happy we did. We now have a QMS800PS, two QMS 2400's, and a QMS 1200. They are absolutely wonderful printers. We have them attached to VAXen running the UNIX 4.2 lpr spooling system. We are able to print plain text, high-res bit-mapped screen dumps, Scribe, TeX, and Troff files. The QMS 800 PS speaks postscript... and QMS is coming out with a 1200 and 2400 which speak postscript very soon (personally, I like postscript a lot, but the native language for QMS is sufficiently powerful and flexible to accomplish our printing/formatting needs). I will have to say that QMS is definitely the best printer company to deal with on all levels (sales, service, special applications). If you need more info, please let me know. Or better yet, call Walt Alves or George Courtovich at (617)890-4590 (tell 'em I sent ya). Feel free to forward these comments to whomever... they are my own personal opinions. I have no business relationship with any laser printer company. --Scott Jones MIT AI Lab -------------------------------------- You need the QMS800PS. It looks just like the Apple laserwriter except it's twice as fast at both TeX and regular text. I have the drivers/filters that you'll need except they're written for a UNIX 4.2 system. You'll have to convert them for VMS... shouldn't be too hard if you have a C compiler. The price is under $5000 now I think. Call (617)890-4590 and ask for Walt Alves or George Courtovich to get a quote. I can't say enough good things about QMS and their products. If you need more info, let me know... --Scott Jones MIT AI Lab -------------------------------------- In response to your request for a comparison... Comparison of the Apple Laserwriter (not the plus) and the QMS-800PS: Laserwriter QMS800PS ----------- -------- Price: seems to be comparable. don't want to quote on mailing list because I've seen a diffential of $3000 on the exact same printer from different sources. TeX speed: 3.5 pages/minute max 7 pages/minute max text speed: 4 pages/minute max 7.5 pages/minute max bugs: a few annoying ones having haven't seen any bugs yet to do with XON/XOFF, and vmerrors service: we don't have a good QMS offers prompt reliable service. mechanism for getting these It's as robust as the laserwriter. fixed. it's a good thing they're so robust! So, in my opinion, the QMS800PS wins hands down. --scott
cak@PURDUE.EDU.UUCP (05/21/86)
We have two, as a partial appeasement from QMS for the travesty that the 1200A that we *bought* is. I believe that we've been promised a 2400A in some sort of exchange when the 2400A becomes available. The PS-800 seems to be identical to a LaserWriter, except that it doesn't have such a fancy test banner page. Nobody here has tried hooking it to a Mac, but it looks like it is complete with AppleTalk connections. I've only been a user, not a programmer, so there may be some warts that are different, but it seems to work just fine. No faster, no slower, as far as I can tell. chris ----------