horton@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU (Nike Horton) (03/18/86)
I'm curious about the modifications that Imagen makes to the run of the mill Canon engine to make an 8/300 sing. Could someone in the know give a general rundown of the differences between what Canon sells Imagen and what Imagen sends to us? Thanks in advance, Nike Horton Aiken Computation Lab horton@harvard.harvard.edu
lacasse@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (Mark LaCasse) (03/18/86)
RE:
Could someone
in the know give a general rundown of the differences between
what Canon sells Imagen and what Imagen sends to us?
I'm not really "in the know", but I'll try.
Last time I looked at a Cannon engine, it required you to give it
an analog voltage that controlled its laser in real time, while the
laser's beam was scanning a drum by boucing off a polygon-shaped rotating
mirror. The Cannon provided a timing pulse to let the interface know
what angle the mirror is at.
Imagen interfaced to this with a very fast 68000-based single board
CPU. This had their own EPROM on it, that turned your text and other
input into something it could send out to the Cannon on the fly.
This has to be done REAL FAST, since you can't tell the Cannon to hold
up a second while you contemplate your bits. Once the papers and rollers
start to roll, thats it.
Imagen also supplies a bunch of Unix based software to use with this.
Mark LaCasse qantel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!randvax!lacasse
c/o The Rand Corporation cbosgd!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!randvax!lacasse
1700 Main Street lacasse@Rand-Unix
Santa Monica, CA 90406
213/393-0411 ext. 7420LES@SU-AI.ARPA (Les Earnest) (03/19/86)
[In reply to message sent Mon, 17 Mar 86 19:40:43 EST.] In assembling the Imagen 8/300, Imagen sticks a metal plate on the Canon engine and slips a raster image processor that they make underneath. The innerds of the engine are unchanged. Les Earnest (Imagen stockholder)