menton@acoustics.nrl.MIL.UUCP (09/30/87)
What brand & model laser printer should we buy? We have several STs at work, serving as terminals to the VAXen/Cray via UniTerm or AnsiGraf, as database managers, word processors, makers of viewgraphs with Easy Draw, Publishing Partner and Degas Elite, time managers, running AC/Fortran, using spreadsheets in VIP Elite, learning C, TeX, etc. We'd like to add a laser printer output capability to these applications. Right now, we settle for near-letter-quality and graphics mode outputs from Epson dot matrix printers. Recommendations are solicited. I think we want a PostScript compatible laser printer, since PP and (I think) Easy Draw have PostScript drivers. That would leave out Atari's laser printer, even if it was available. Email directly to me, or to the net if you think your ideas might have wider appeal. Thanks. Bob Menton ARPAnet: MENTON@NRL-ACOUSTICS ------
dragon@oliveb.UUCP (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) (10/01/87)
in article <8709301705.AA20894@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, menton@acoustics.nrl.MIL ("Robert Menton") says: > What brand & model laser printer should we buy? .... > Recommendations are solicited. I think we want a PostScript compatible > laser printer, since PP and (I think) Easy Draw have PostScript drivers. That > would leave out Atari's laser printer, even if it was available. Email > directly to me, or to the net if you think your ideas might have wider appeal. > Thanks. > Bob Menton > ARPAnet: MENTON@NRL-ACOUSTICS Publishing Partner supports both the HP and Postscript devices. The HP output is much faster, since it doesn't use Postscript. Easy Draw has a Postscript driver, and an HP GDOS driver is available from Michtron. Atari's laser printer has a GDOS driver, it works fine with Easy Draw. I'm sure a PP driver will come out for it when the it comes out. The HP has one of the nicest outputs I've seen since it uses the new Canon engine. And it isn't too expensive, but realize that a memory upgrade will be necessary to do anything useful. QMS makes a nice Postscript printer (actually a few) but as far as I know they use the older Canon engine (like in the original HP) and I would stay away from that. (I think they also support HP emulation) The Atari printer has very nice output, but (as of now) can only be used on an ST (that's what I'm told). To further complicate things, a Postscript board is available for the HP, and the total cost of the board, the printer, and memory is close to what the QMS costs. Hope I didn't confuse you more! -- Dean Brunette {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!olivej!dragon {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!dragon-oatc!dean Olivetti Advanced Technology Center _____ _____ __|__ _____ 20300 Stevens Creek Blvd. | | _____| | | Cupertino, CA 95014 |_____| |_____| |__ |_____ 'Such a strange girl, I think I'm falling in love' --The Cure
braner@batcomputer.UUCP (10/02/87)
[] IF the Atari laser printer comes out, and IF it is as planned: just the mechanics, no smarts, THEN it will have as much memory as you'll stuff into the ST (next year: 4 megs), and will run any page description language that you will get software for (on an ST disk!). In other words, it will be _very_ flexible. And even when the ST becomes obsolete (i.e., as soon as the Mac II becomes available in quantity) the ST+printer as a package will be a nice printer --- assuming that software will be available to run it that way, with the input coming from outside of the ST. But then, we havn't seen a new Atari product in almost two years. - Moshe Braner
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (10/05/87)
In article <8709301705.AA20894@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, menton@acoustics.nrl.MIL ("Robert Menton") writes: [stuff about having STs tied to big UNIX machines was here] > What brand & model laser printer should we buy? > > Recommendations are solicited. I think we want a PostScript compatible > laser printer, since PP and (I think) Easy Draw have PostScript drivers. That > would leave out Atari's laser printer, even if it was available. Email > directly to me, or to the net if you think your ideas might have wider appeal. We have been using an Atari ST and Publishing Partner to add graphics to our class materials. What we do is: 1. Write the text using troff 2. Draw graphics and stuff on the Atari 3. Merge the PP PostScript into the troff stuff using the pass-thru capabilities of ditroff 4. Print on a LaserWriter using devps, a package that converts ditroff output to PostScript. With the exception of some bugs in PP, this has worked very well. Devps comes with macros and a shell script to include Mac output. This was easily modified to work with PP output. It (devps) also allows a 'forms flash' capability which we use to print the border on the page and copyright notices. EasyDraw, as of a month ago, still didn't have their PostScript driver working. The hold up was that they didn't have a PostScript printer. Now, printer suggestions. We have a LaserWriter. It works and was the only reasonably priced choice when we bought it. We sell devps and therefore have customers with many different laser printers. They vary from the TI Omnilaser to the Diconix. The only complaints I have heard was a debate over print quality on the early Dataproducts model. The new one that sounds like a great deal but I have no experience with is the NEC one. It has 300 dpi resolution like the rest but uses an LCD shutter and has a projected life of 600,000 pages. It is in the $5,000 price range. Hope this helps. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX ...!uw-beaver!tikal!ssc!fyl
COLEMANDW@A.ISI.EDU (David W. Coleman) (10/08/87)
For some general information on laser printers the Oct 5,1987 issue of Infoworld reviewed 7 of the leading laser printers under $2600. The most expensive of which is the HP Laserjet II retailing for $2600 though I have seen it advertised for under$1900. I have no experience with laser printers to know if they work with the ST but I don't know why not especially the HP. The HP was also their "overall champ." The review gives some things to look for in laser printers also. Check it out if you are interested. It definitely seems to talk about laser printers that are more expensive than the Atari laser printer, but much easier to get you hands on. The printers they reviewed are by C. Itoh, Destiny, Epson, HP, NEC, Oasys and Okidata not unfamiliar names. KEN NYGARD are you reading this? David Coleman -------
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/09/87)
In article <777@ssc.UUCP> fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) writes: > >Now, printer suggestions. We have a LaserWriter. It works and was the >only reasonably priced choice when we bought it. We sell devps and >therefore have customers with many different laser printers. They vary >from the TI Omnilaser to the Diconix. The only complaints I have heard >was a debate over print quality on the early Dataproducts model. The new >one that sounds like a great deal but I have no experience with is the >NEC one. It has 300 dpi resolution like the rest but uses an LCD shutter >and has a projected life of 600,000 pages. It is in the $5,000 price >range. > >Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Lasers, lasers, lasers. The TI one looks funny when used with fonts for other lasers as it is a white on black device, and most others are black on white devices. AST sells a (rf)Postscript laser for $3995. QMS has a remarkable line, ranging from the PS800 (plain old (rf)PostScript) with three fonts and a 68K @ 7Mhz to the new PS800 II which has 35 fonts and a 16Mhz 68K. They will introduce a 300 dpi color thermal dye transfer printer next quarter, and have a 68020 color laser in the skunkworks sheduled for release Q2 88. There is an (gasp!) Amiga utility called IFF2PS that converts Amiga IFF files to PostScript and does an absolutly FANTASTIC job of it. If you guys have any way of converting your stuff to IFF and have access to one of the 'A-Word' computers its certainly worth a try. It is truly amazing. Disclaimer: I have a QMS printer, and I may be biased in this respect. -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."
ravi@mcnc.UUCP (Ravi Subrahmanyan) (10/09/87)
In article <1831@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > >There is an (gasp!) Amiga utility called IFF2PS that converts Amiga >IFF files to PostScript and does an absolutly FANTASTIC job of it. If you >guys have any way of converting your stuff to IFF and have access to one >of the 'A-Word' computers its certainly worth a try. It is truly amazing. > Tom Hudson had an article in one of the early issues of STart magazine about conversion between IFF and Degas/Neochrome. He included programs that did a pretty complete job as far as I can remember (a friend of mine who has an Amiga used Tom's descriptions of IFF to write some of his own IFF programs); in fact, I think the newer versions of Tom Hudson's programs may well have the capability to save IFF files. So, to get to the point, someone ought to be able to port the IFF2PS program from the Amiga to the ST, I can't think of any reason it shouldn't just fly (after all, there isn't any screen displaying involved, is there?). Would someone who can get hold of IFF2PS source (for the Amiga) mail it to me? Thanks, -ravi ps: is there a reason not to adopt IFF as a standard in the ST world also? At the very least, it should make it easier to send pictures back and forth between machines, making it possible to do more direct comparisons, and thus more entertaining machine bashing.. think of all the fun we could have! 8^) 8^)