covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (12/09/89)
TO GREG LINDAHL: PRESS 'n' NOW AND SAVE YOURSELF SOME GRIEF AS I AM GOING TO
TALK MORE ABOUT MY NEW PANASONIC KXP445 LASER PRINTER, AND I KNOW THAT YOU
DON'T WANT TO READ THIS MESSAGE. REC.
Before Day One Or the Day of the Panasonic KX-P4450
I checked around and found a mail order company in San Jose CA that had
both the Panasonic KX-P4450 laser printer and the 1 meg memory board for it
in stock at a lower price than I could buy locally in Phoenix. So, on Monday
Before Day One I ordered the KXP4450. I ordered it COD and had it routed to a
friendly local Mail Boxes Etc USA store. I than eagerly awaited my new laser
printer.
Thursday, Day One
Imagine my excitement when at 11:15 am on Thursday I got a call from Mail Boexes
Etc. that my KXP4450 ad arrived. I rush over to pick it up during lunch. It came in
two boxes, with the printer in one big box, and the paper trays and supplies in
a smaller box. I open the small box and retrieve the Operating Instructions
Manual, which I took back to work.
Day One 5 P.M.
I get off work and go home to play with the laser printer. The manual indicates
that I have to install the Developer Drum, the Optical Drum ,and some
toner. The manual is very clear, and the internal mechnical layout of
the XKP4450 leaves no doubt as how to install the two drums. They simply
slide in; very nice. The toner is poured from a bottle, with a nice little
spout, into a reservoir on the top of the printer. The memory board is installed
inside the top of the printer and requires a Phillips type screwdriver. The memory
board uses the 256K SIMM DRAM chips. After fifteen minutes, I have the KXP4450
buttoned up and powered on.
Before attaching the KXP4450 to my Mega I do a Status SelfCheck, which confirms
that everything is operational. I than attach the printer thru a parallel port
cable to the Mega ST. I set the printer to Epson emulation, and do a screen
dump. Imagine my shock when nothing prints out. I wonder, is the parallel cable
bad, is the parallel interface in the printer bad? So, I locate a text file,
and PRINT it from the Desktop. I notice activity on the printer indicator,
so I know that the printer is getting data. After about 30 seconds the mouse
is active again and I start getting paper printed. And was it FAST. I printed
20 pages amost as quick as they could be layed down. Now, when I printed text
with my SLM804, I could count between pages. With this printer, once the data
reaches the printer and starts printing the pages are dumped noticably quicker
than the SLM804.
Other things I noticed once I got the KXP4450 is that it is slightly larger
than my SLM804 so I need to rearrange my computer room. I may buy a different
printer stand for it. But as the KXP4450 interfaces to my STs via a parallel
port, I can use a Centronics A-B Switch box to allow both of my STs to print
to the 4450. That is something that I couldn't do with my SLM. So, I shop for
a new printer stand this weekend.
Word Perfect is supposed to have a printer driver for the KXP4450, and has
downloadable soft fonts for it. I am still investigating this. I may switch
from MS WRITE to WP now that I have a printer that is supported by WP. The
downloadable soft fonts would allow me to make text printouts from the desktop
in various fonts as well. That is something I could only do with GDOS with
the SLM804 laser printer. Hey, you can't download fonts to a laser printer
which doesn't have a cpu and memory, right?
So, what elese is there for me to learn about the 4450? Well, I used a program
called FRONT&BACK to print out double sided text, and the 4450's builtin font
isn't 66 line per page. Or soemthing, because we I tried to use F&B to print
out a text file, the page breaks didn't agree with the printer. I need to check
this.
I also need to see about a good GDOS printer driver for the 4450. I need either
a Panasonic KXP4450 driver or a LaserjetPlus driver. A 4450 driver that knows
about the dual paper trays would be nice. Anyway, once I get a LJ+ GDOS
printer driver I can use Manual Maker (by Craig Daymon on GEnie) and
IMG CAT again.
I need to reinstall Calamus and PageStream because would I last installed them
I deleted all of the unnecessary (such as LJ+) printer drivers, and left only
the SLM804 drivers on my hard disk. So, time to reinstall and then try them
out.
I also want to try out the 4450 in my Mac Spectre. I need to buy a LJ+
printer driver for my Spectre. Once I do that I can print at 300 dpi under
Spectre. I am looking for a place to buy a program called Mac Flow. Mac Flow
is a flow charting program which my friends tell me is great. With my new
printer I can finally use some of these mac programs and still get great
printouts. I am very excited about Spectre 128/Spectre GCR now that I can
finally get decent printouts.
And finally I need to see if pc ditto II ever comes out. I know that most
MSDOS programs support the LJ+ printer, so I am in business with my 4450!
All in all, my first evening, with all of the hints of the power and flexibility
of my new printer, was very exciting. The fact that I can emulate both macs and
pcs, and that now I can finally print in full laser quality, on both systems
is very exciting. makes me want to keep my ST around for awhile longer!
Now, if the TT were to come out, and Dave Small could emulate the Mac IIci
on it with the new Mac IIci QuickDraw ROMs and the new Mac System 7 operating
system and MultiFinder, maybe the TT could have a slight future. Imagine, the
TT as a Mac IIci clone!! WOW! And if Jim Allen were to provide an accelerator
for the TT, maybe bumping it up to 32 MHZ, we could have a killer Mac clone!!
--
Richard E. Covert, Lead Engineer of Software Tools Group
AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ (602) - 581-4652
TCP/IP: covertr@gtephx
UUCP: {ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att}!gtephx!covertr