mgardi@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (M.Gardi - ICR) (07/15/89)
Well, we just got an HP Paintjet colour printer in at work to reduce the cost of colour output. We were using a Tektronix 4693D but at almost $4 Canadian a page, the costs were getting out of line. Knowing that I had a driver for this puppy on my extra's disk, I asked if I could take it home for the weekend. First some specs, for those not familiar with the printer. It's an inkjet using cartridges very similar in appearance to the HP Deskjet series. It uses 2 cartridges, which sit side by side. One cartridge is black ink only, the other is yellow, magenta and cyan. Life expectancy of the cartridges is as follows: * Black text (1000 chars/page) 1100 Pages * Colour graphics with moderate (10-15%) solid area fill 180 Pages * Colour graphics with solid background in one colour 50 Pages There are two internal fonts. At 10 cpi it's Courier; at 12 or 18 cpi it's Letter Gothic. The printer has the capability of printing raster images at either 180 or 90 dpi in both the horizontal or vertical direction. At 180 dpi, each bit sent to the printer causes a pixel to be represented with 1 dot. At the default 90 dpi, each bit causes a pixel to be represented with four dots. At 180 dpi, the printer is capable of printing only eight colours: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white (with white being no ink; the colour of the paper). The printer has a resident table of RGB values that it compares to the user-specified RGB values. When the printer recieves a request for a certain colour, it will select the best match to the user-specified colour from the colours it can generate. The same RGB values sent to an NTSC monitor can be sent to the printer resulting in hardcopy with the same approximate colours as the screen image. Special coated paper is provided (you get better results than regular paper) or you can print transparencies. Three interfaces are available: standard parallel, HP-1B (IEEE-488) and RS-232-C. I connected the printer up to my parallel port and immediately started Photon Paint 2. Then, I loaded up those incredible HAM-overscan images from one of the later fish disks (180-200?). You know the ones I mean; the terrific ones of racing cars, motor-cycles and jets. Anyways, I printed them and they look great! I didn't expect much with a resolution of 180 dpi (the driver only allows 180 dpi mode), but putting the picture side by side with the same picture printed on a DeskJet Plus at 300 dpi, the colour image actually looks sharper. I tried all 3 dithering schemes. F-S gave the nicest image, but the colours tended to be darker and more muted. Ordered tended to create "blotches" of colour. Halftone gave the nicest prints. Holding the page at arms length, it almost appears photographic. The colours are very true to life. Unfortunately, when I tried F-S with colour correction turned on, I met the turbaned one. Guru 3 (if I recall). If anyone else has a Paintjet, I'd appreciate knowing if they encounter the same problem. Smoothing didn't make a noticable difference with halftone dithering. Speed is good with halftone. The carriage pauses for about half a second between passes. F-S slows the carriage pause to between 2 and 3 seconds. The guys at work (real IBM noids) were knocked out. "Nice images... What'd you do these on? An Amiga? HP supply a driver for that? It comes with the computer?! Don't you need a special driver for every piece of software? Don't you need a special TSR for colour print-screens? Don't you need a special... " Well maybe that isn't an exact quote, but if you look through the provided software/hardware guide, you can see the problems that you get into if you use this printer with an MS-DOS system. It lists which software packages support which features (not all features are supported) and where you can obtain the special driver. The list goes on for 2 pages. Under Amiga it just says: "PaintJet driver will work with all software packages that run on the Amiga. The driver supports text (both internal PaintJet fonts and screen bit-map fonts) and graphics. Supports transparencies and all Amiga color modes and resolutions." A nice change from the preceeding 2 pages of excuses and footnotes. Sorry if this has taken up too much band-width, but I'm really excited about this printer. I wish I could afford one. I don't even know how much this thing costs, but I'm sure it's not that bad for what you get. I figure about $1200 US. Don't flame me if I'm wrong. Think they'll notice if I don't bring it back? ;-) Joe deSousa Mutual Life of Canada Waterloo, Ontario [C/O mgardi@watdcsu.waterloo.edu] [Please include the words "Att: Joe" in the subject line of any Email replies.]
alh@hprmokg.HP.COM (Al Harrington) (07/24/89)
InterActive Softworks Inc. (sorry, I don't have an address) makes "CalligraFonts" which are HP Paintjet fonts. They are *very* impressive. I saw them at the S.F. Amiga Expo last month and convinced them to give me some sample output. *VERY* impressive. The Paintjet is next on my list to buy.....(still paying for my laser!) +-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | -Al Harrington /// | | | /// | "Do I look like I'm joking?" | | alh@hprmo.HP.COM \\\/// | | | ..{hplabs,hp-sde}!hprmo!alh \XX/ | - The Joker | +-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | My comments in no way reflect the views or opinions of HP | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
hrlaser@sactoh0 (Harv R. Laser) (07/26/89)
In article <13240034@hprmokg.HP.COM> alh@hprmokg.HP.COM (Al Harrington) writes: >InterActive Softworks Inc. (sorry, I don't have an address) makes >"CalligraFonts" which are HP Paintjet fonts. They are *very* >impressive. Say huh? InterActive applies the "CalligraFont" name to many pkgs of fonts which they produce. Thereare Asha Develder's CalligraFonts. There are Lion Kuntz' CalligraFonts. There are Andre Page's CalligraFonts. There are Marlin Greene's CalligraFonts. There are John Mallette's CalligraFonts. NONE of these fonts are specific to the HP Paintjet. ALL of these fonts will work with ANY Amiga software which understands the standard WorkBench fonts (diamond, ruby, etc.). SOME of these "CalligraFonts" pkgs contain ColorFonts (tm) which look great when output to a Paintjet but can also be output to MANY other mfrs' models of color printers like my own lowly Epson JX-80, or an Okimate 20, or any number of models by Tek, Xerox, Diablo, Star, etc. etc. blah blah. Don't confuse the fact that some of these fonts are ColorFonts with the fact that they CAN be dumped to a Paintjet.. because they can also be dumped to any other color printer that can be driven by an Amiga. BTW: InterActive is at 2521 S. Vista Way #254, Carlsbad CA 92008, 619-434-5327. I have NO involvement, financial or otherwise, with InterActive. I reviewed Calligrapher for a magazine once and IA quotes me in their advertising but that's it. :) > >I saw them at the S.F. Amiga Expo last month and convinced them to >give me some sample output. *VERY* impressive. > >The Paintjet is next on my list to buy.....(still paying for my >laser!) > > >+-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ >| -Al Harrington /// | | >| /// | "Do I look like I'm joking?" | >| alh@hprmo.HP.COM \\\/// | | >| ..{hplabs,hp-sde}!hprmo!alh \XX/ | - The Joker | >+-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ >| My comments in no way reflect the views or opinions of HP | >+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- | Harv Laser | SAC-UNIX, Sacramento, Ca. | | Plink: CBM*HARV | UUCP=...pacbell!sactoh0 | | "The human brain is the only computer made of meat" |
nraoaoc@nmtsun.nmt.edu (NRAO Array Operations Center) (07/26/89)
In article <13240034@hprmokg.HP.COM> alh@hprmokg.HP.COM (Al Harrington) writes: >InterActive Softworks Inc. (sorry, I don't have an address) makes >"CalligraFonts" which are HP Paintjet fonts. They are *very* >impressive. > ...... My university microcomputer store (University of Chicago) has just listed the Paintjet for 1/2 the previous price: now $469 or so. (A few months ago, I paid $950 there; so it doesn't do me any good.) I am very impressed with the quality of outputs now, so if the Paintjet is being heavily discounted now, it is an extremely good buy. I think HP is pretty reliable about supplying paper and ink even for discontinued products. Pat Palmer (email: ppalmer@oddjob.uchicago.edu or ppalmer@nrao.edu)
tony@hp-sdd.hp.com (Tony Parkhurst) (07/27/89)
In article <3003@nmtsun.nmt.edu> nraoaoc@nmtsun.nmt.edu (NRAO Array Operations Center) writes: >My university microcomputer store (University of Chicago) has just listed the >Paintjet for 1/2 the previous price: now $469 or so. (A few months ago, I paid ^^^ >$950 there; so it doesn't do me any good.) This seems HIGHLY unlikely. Would you please verify this price. Would be odd for something that lists at about $1400 to go for $469 even with an educational discount. Perhaps you were getting the price of the discounted DeskJet? -- Tony -- Tony Parkhurst ( tony@hp-sdd.HP.COM ) "Is this Hell? Or is this Texas?" "Both" -- Heinlein, _J_O_B: _A _C_o_m_e_d_y _o_f _J_u_s_t_i_c_e