Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (12/18/85)
Not strictly laser printer technology, but I got a flyer today from Aptos Post Typesetting telling me that they had a mail- order typesetting service available which ran PostScript on their (just-purchased) Linotronic 100. They claim that you have to send them Mac disks, and they will run the application to print the files you want. I called and asked if they could download stuff from an IBM PC disk (obviously, I want to get FinalWord II output on it) which was PostScript, and they offered to try, although they said thay hadn't even attempted it yet. Price $10 per page 8.5 inch wide, slightly more for 11-inch wide stuff. (The concept of a "page" is kind of strange to hear from a typesetting type!) So all you folks who have been using laser printers where only typesetters would do (instead of using a typesetter when a simple laser printer would do) can now buy high-quality type, if you choose to afford it. Brian (Hess.Unicorn@Mit-Multics)
phr@ERNIE (Paul Rubin) (12/19/85)
TextSet charges around $6/page to typeset .dvi files, which I felt was outrageous. Our local computer center charges around $1.00/foot for troff typesetting (Autologic APS-5, TeX support coming), and you can buy old film typesetters now for less than you can buy a LaserWriter for. If you don't mind messing around with film and chemicals and having to buy fonts on film sectors, you can do super quality typesetting for around $0.25 a foot.