rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) (04/24/88)
Well my venerable Star Gemini 10 is on the ropes again and i think i will junk it. I would like to replace it with a TeX-supportive printer, e.g. >=300 dpi in both directions. Color is a nice idea, and it would also be nice if it were free. I am currently thinking about NEC P-6, NEC Color P-6, HP DeskJet, and HP PrintJet (color ink jet). One question, why would you want a DeskJet over a NEC P-6? Do P-6 graphics look any good? Does a DeskJet look just like a laser to you (it does to me?)? Does a P6 look just like a laser, or more like a dot-matrix dump? So with all that in mind, could anyone knowledgable fill out the questionnaire and e-mail to me? I will summarize if i get anything (and i DO summarize, for those of you who remember the last time i did this) 1) What kind of printer do you have? What resolution? 2) How much does it/did it cost? 3) Do you use it with TeX? 4) How does it compare to laser-printer output? 5) Does it support color? Does it do it as badly as a JX-80 or is it better than that? 6) How fast is it in draft? 7) How many ppm do you get from TeX? 8) Any other comments? 9) Any commments on the printers i mentioned above? Thanks Thanks Thanks!!! -- ron (rminnich@udel.edu)
rokicki@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) (04/25/88)
Hi, Ron! You wanted some data on printers; I thought I'd give my two cents. All the printers I mention I support with AmigaTeX. First laser printers. Everyone should get a PostScript printer, if they can afford it. These things do more magic than anything else out there, and are guaranteed to be the best supported printer for many years to come. They will last you through several computers, and give you many fun hours playing with PostScript. The QMS PS-Jet Plus is a great printer; the Apple LaserWriter is okay. Next on the list is the LaserJet Series II. This is a fast, very nice laser printer, and somewhat expandable. It will do TeX very nicely. A LaserJet Plus is fine. I recommend the Canon SX engine (the one that the paper feeds out and stacks on top) or, failing that, the Canon CX (standard LaserWriter or LaserJet Plus material.) Finally, a good cheap printer strictly for use with AmigaTeX is the QMS Kiss or SmartWriter. Both of these can be modified to be PostScript printers. I don't know anything about ink jet printers. I will give you my feelings about the HP DestJet, though, from looking through the documentation. It appears to be a capable printer, but it is not as smart as a laser printer. It looks like a dot matrix printer to the software, so TeX has to be sent as a bit map. It does have some good smarts for compressing that bit map, though, so it will probably be reasonably fast, and of course the output quality is very nice. I'm not sure that the HP LaserJet Series II isn't worth the differential cost though. On to dot matrix printers. My personal favoriate is the Epson LQ 850, but you can't go wrong with any of the Epson LQ series or the NEC P6/P7 series. These are both fine printers, fast, high quality, 180 dpi in both directions (or more!) The emphasis here is on speed; one of these can do TeX output much more quickly than any other dot matrix printer. The venerable Epson MX and all of its cousins are good, cheap printers. For TeX, they are slow, but the high quality output is quite nice. For this and all following printers, the pins are so large that fine details in characters tend to be way overemphasized; the type looks heavy, even if it is not very black. The ImageWriter II works okay with TeX as well; it was designed for graphics and shows it. Well, that's my two cents. Anyone have anything else to say? -tom
ejkst@cisunx.UUCP (Eric J. Kennedy) (04/27/88)
In article <2684@polya.STANFORD.EDU> rokicki@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) writes: >Next on the list is the LaserJet Series II. This is a fast, very >nice laser printer, and somewhat expandable. It will do TeX very >nicely. I have access to a LaserJet Series II, but it's on an IBM. How simple is it to dump AmigaTEX to a file, transfer it to MS-DOS, and dump it from the IBM to the laser? (I can transfer files from Amiga <--> IBM easily, it's the other stuff I'm asking about.) Same question for a Mac and LaserWriter. >-tom -- ------------ Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP