gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (David Gardiner) (05/04/90)
The general consensus is that parallel is faster than serial. I am trying to find the thing I read that indicated otherwise. I'm also trying to contact Pacific Data Products. If there are any surprises I will post. There was enough interest in PacificPage to justify posting a review. Hence, press "n" now if you don't care... It is great. The quality of the output is outstanding, as good as any true PS printer I have seen (I use an Apple Laserwriter all the time at school). It is a bit slow, though. If you are going to print out a great deal of text, you will probably not be happy. But, since you already have an HP Laserjet, you just press ON LINE, CONTINUE-MENU and the printer resets as a Laserjet. Same thing to toggle it back to PS. It is best suited for printing a relatively small number of pages of graphics. It is much faster doing graphics than native PCL (twice as fast or faster). Plus you can use all PS software (EPS files, etc.). We use it with Windows. One real plus is that the Windows postscript printer driver works well. When you send something to print, the system is only hung up for a few seconds. Then the spooler handles it. You go on your merry way, with no noticeable performance degradation (at least on our 20 MHz 386). As compared to the Windows PCL driver, which hangs up the system for eternity. A page can take from 30 seconds to 30 minutes (or more) to print, depending on how complex it is. Big bitmaps are the worst. I don't think that a regular PS printer handles those too quickly either. But, since you can use the system while the file prints, the speed has not been much of a problem for us. We are generally printing out one or two pages of graphics at a time. If you are using Word 5.0, forget it. The Postscript driver on that product is horrible. It downloads the header FOR EVERY PAGE. Plus it hangs up the system the whole time. Bad news. Maybe Microsoft has a better driver now -- that would be worth a check if you really want to use Word 5.0 with a PS printer. This problem is due to Word, not PacificPage. MS Works is a bit better, although I found that I had to manually (or bat file) download the PS header file prior to starting Works. This seems like a big thing for MS to forget, so maybe I missed something. If you have trouble printing to a PS printer with Works, try downloading the PS header first. I have not found any incompatiblity problems with PacificPage. The only "gotcha" is that you need a Legal paper tray if you want to print out legal sized pages. You can't hand-feed them (they stop part way through -- no software solution at this time). Note: You need to have 2.5 Meg of printer memory to use PacificPage (that is, normal system plus a board w/ 2 Meg). Prices for a new setup: $1000 for a IIP, $400 for memory board and memory, $600 for PacificPage. Total: $2000 (+- $100 or so). I have no affiliation with Pacific Data Products other than being a satisfied customer. David Gardiner -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Gardiner University of Minnesota Computer Science Dept. gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
phil@pepsi.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (05/05/90)
In article <1990May4.154152.7326@cs.umn.edu> gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (David Gardiner) writes: |The general consensus is that parallel is faster than serial. I |am trying to find the thing I read that indicated otherwise. I'm In general, "it depends". I have a printer sharing box that runs at 115Kb serial, which is supposed to be faster than parallel. BUT, the HPLJ runs at a max serial of 19,200. So parallel into it ought to be faster. An Apple LW normally runs at 9600. But if you feel like writing a Postscript program to change its speed, you can go up to 38,400 or 57,600 (I think). And of course, it doesn't have a parallel input. -- Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil Government: organized crime with an attitude.
leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds) (05/08/90)
In article <1990May4.154152.7326@cs.umn.edu> gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (David Gardiner) writes: >If you are using Word 5.0, forget it. The Postscript driver on that >product is horrible. It downloads the header FOR EVERY PAGE. I may be wrong, but I have the opportunity to view (via PCNFS print redirection) the complete word5.0a PS print file, and do not recall seeing their MONSTER header for every page ... just once per print job. leoh@hdw.csd.harris.com Leo Hinds (305)973-5229 Gfx ... gfx ... :-) whfg orpnhfr V "ebg"grq zl fvtangher svyr lbh guvax V nz n creireg ?!!!!!!? ... znlor arkg gvzr
davin@me.utoronto.ca (Davin Yap) (05/09/90)
In article <4086@hcx1.SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM> leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds) writes: >I may be wrong, but I have the opportunity to view (via PCNFS print >redirection) the complete word5.0a PS print file, and do not recall >seeing their MONSTER header for every page ... just once per print job. Aye, 'tis true. Our ps printers are on our unix systems, to print a word document I first send the initialization file to the printer, then the ps file from word, oblivious to the number of pages. All ya gotta do is look at the ps files to figure this out, the first poster (not leoh) obviously didn't bother. Davin