GASPARD@HROEUR5.BITNET (02/05/88)
>First - does it make a great deal of sense to by the laser engine for >$2K when right next to it is an HP going for $1.7K, which has .5 Meg of >memory, and the ability to upgrade it to almost anything. (Postscript >included). Is the quality of the Atari Laser so great as to outweigh >all other factors? You're right. The HP offers more value for money. Output quality of the HP LaserJet II is among the best in small laser printers. Very nice blacks etc. The fundamental difference between the HP and the Atari engine is that the first is a so-called write-black and the Atari is write-white. Write-white has a theoretical advantage when it comes to printing large black areas. Write-black is better for fonts though, especially at the 300 dpi resolution of these printers. On the whole I doubt you'll see a lot of difference between the output of these two printers. The HP has easier maintenance. You replace one cartridge every 4-5000 pages. No messing about with (nasty) toner. The Canon-engines of the HP have built up a very good reputation in terms of reliability. The Kentek engine of the Atari laser is used by Oasys for its laser printers, which, by the way, are even cheaper. But I have never heard about any long-term experiences. > >Second - consider the following two scenarios. I buy a mono-mega4 and >an atari laser printer for $4.5K, and lets say Word Perfect, a page >publishing program. > >-or- >I buy a mono-ST for .9K and a AST Turbo Laser for $3K -> for a total of >$3.9K. >I have the same software. The AST has a major advantage; it supports Postscript. This alone, I feel, makes it a much better choice than the brain-less Atari laser. Everybody supports Postscript these days. You can safely assume that it is the standard for the next 3-5 years. The AST is based on the Ricoh engine. And I found none of the Postscript lasers based on this write-white engine (e.g. Texas Instruments 2108/2115, Digital Scriptprinter) to have very satisfactory output. Every font looks bold. The Postscript option on the HP laserjet II involves a board for a PC. You won't be able to use it with any ST in Postscript mode. The Postscript language (but not the Adobe fonts and font-manipulating algoritms) is in the public domain. With 4 Megs of memory it should be possible to implement the Postscript RIP in the Mega ST and send the page bitmap to a dumb laser printer such as the Atari. But I have yet to hear of anyone announcing such a product. I'm afraid the market may not be large enough to make it interesting. I faced exactly the same dilemma as you are in three months ago. I ended up buying a NEC LC890 Postscript laser (approx. $ 3.3k, also 3 Megs of memory, write-black, two paper bins standard, etc). Apart from the fact that there is still no satisfactory desktop-publishing software on the ST, I also wanted to print from a PC (using Ventura Publisher; when are they finally going to port that to the ST?). And, most important, Postscript files can be sent to a typesetter; I don't think Linotype or any other mayor supplier of typesetting equipment has plans to support GDOS. Let's face it; even Atari hardly supports it. And I must agree with other owners of the NEC; you'll never want any other printer (except of course that 2500 dpi colour laser for $ 2k). Apart from Postscript (with all the LW+ fonts) it offers HP LaserJet and Diablo 630 (very useful for program listings) emulation. Has anyone managed to print to a Postscript printer (such as the LaserWriter) with the Magic Sac? Serial communication is no problem, but how does the Mac Postscript driver behave with the ST? If you want more info on laser-printers join Laser-lovers, Postscript and/or the Desktop Publishing list. Gaspard de Jong ST foundation, the Netherlands Erasmus University Computing Center
NETOPRHM@NCSUVM.BITNET (Hal Meeks) (06/07/88)
LCD printers have been around for about 6 - 8 months now. There are two currently available. There was a review of the both of them in Byte magazine in the April or May issue. They were a little unflattering. The main problems with them are threefold: They offer no cost avantages over Laser Printers, they are based on the Ricoh engine and neither support Postscript, which I consider a necessity if you are going to spend this kind of money. Another burgeoning technology to be paying attention to is Bubble jet technology. Canon has supposed made a real breakthrough, and will be introducing new models later this year. We are talking 300+ dpi resolution (possibly in color), for less than a thousand dollars. --hal
djjouellette@lion.waterloo.edu (Daniel JJ Ouellette) (09/14/89)
Hello. I was working in a firm that had a lot of laser printers this summer, and I have fallen in love with the things. Does anyone know if HP laserjet printers are supported by the 520,1040, etc. and what, if any , drivers are needed. Thanks, Danny .dpt
erik@mcrware.UUCP (Erik Johnson) (10/23/90)
Hello, I am looking for a laser printer. My system consists of a 1040ST with 2.5 Meg, 80 Meg HD. I plan on using the printer for desktop publishing (Calamus I imagine) and a good deal of graphics work (direct bit-image dumps). Would I be best off with the ATARI laser printer (high speed data transfer), or possibly Panasonic, or other? My hard drive must be at the end of DMA chain, will the ATARI laser daisy-chain? Any opinions, price quotes, sources, would be much appreciated. (BTW, I am Erik R. Johnson, as in Vcel. I am out of college now and working at Microware (OS9/OS9000)) EMAIL erik@mcrware.com Thank you.