schou@portia.Stanford.EDU (Scott Chou) (01/22/90)
I've heard in the past that the only real difference between the Deskwriter and Deskjet is the software driver and outline fonts made especially for the Mac. On the other hand, I understand that many people are choosing to use Adobe Type Manager and its nice/growing collection of well maintained outline fonts instead of those provided by HP. Achieving greater consistency between screen display to printer as well as across different printer makes. If this is the case, then wouldn't it be financially advantageous to just get a Deskjet and ATM? Plus whatever choose document (MacPrint, Grappler, PD, ?). If anyone has such a set up, I'd like to hear from you. If someone knows why the above won't work perfectly, I'd also like to hear from you. Thanks, Scott Chou Stanford University
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (01/23/90)
In article <8451@portia.Stanford.EDU> schou@portia.Stanford.EDU (Scott Chou) writes: > I've heard in the past that the only real difference between the Deskwriter > and Deskjet is the software driver and outline fonts made especially for the > Mac. This is not really an accurate comparison. The DeskWriter and DeskJet Plus use the same printer mechanism. I believe that they use the same CPU chip. They have _very_ different firmware, though, and their software (bits-over-the-serial-line) protocols are not compatible. The DeskJet Plus (and the DeskJet) support a version of HP's Printer Control Language (PCL), have both a parallel and a serial interface, and are really optimized for using fonts which are either built in, installed via a ROM cartridge, or downloaded into a RAM cartridge. The DeskWriter is designed to gobble high-resolution, highly-compressed rasterized bitmaps, and dump them out to the print-head _quickly_. It does not support PCL. It does support (and use) a 2-dimensional raster-graphic compression algorithm which is not supported by the DeskJet family. It accepts serial-port input at 56 kbits/second, three times faster than the top serial-port speed of the DeskJet Plus. > On the other hand, I understand that many people are choosing to use > Adobe Type Manager and its nice/growing collection of well maintained outline > fonts instead of those provided by HP. Achieving greater consistency between > screen display to printer as well as across different printer makes. You can use ATM with either a DeskWriter or with a DeskJet-plus-third- party-driver. > If this is the case, then wouldn't it be financially advantageous to just get > a Deskjet and ATM? Plus whatever choose document (MacPrint, Grappler, PD, ?). It depends what you want. The least-cost approach is a DeskJet (original model), plus ATM, plus a third-party driver. This approach works quite nicely... its biggest disadvantage is that the original DeskJet is CPU-limited. Printing a full page of high-resolution text will take between 5 and 6 minutes, in typical cases. The same setup with a DeskJet Plus is substantially faster... single-page print time will go down to between 2 and 3 minutes, I believe. However, you still won't get the same speed as a DeskWriter, because the DeskJet Plus has only a 1-dimensional raster compression algorithm, and doesn't support serial-port speeds of > 19200 bits/second. You won't save much money, though... the cost of ATM plus a good third-party driver is roughly equal to the price difference between the DeskJet Plus and the DeskWriter. The DeskWriter will give you a print-speed of roughly one minute per page... significantly faster than the DeskJet Plus. You can, if you wish, use ATM fonts in place of, or in addition to the HP-supplied outline fonts. > If anyone has such a set up, I'd like to hear from you. If someone knows > why the above won't work perfectly, I'd also like to hear from you. It will certainly work. I'm running a DeskJet (original) with a driver from DataPak, using oversized bitmap fonts; I might buy ATM one of these days. It's slow, in 300 dpi mode, but is entirely workable. My current prescription is: if you need a printer which is compatible with both the PC and the Mac, go with the DeskJet Plus. If you need only a Mac printer, and want the best possible speed, buy a DeskWriter. -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
stevem@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Steve Miller) (01/23/90)
>I've heard in the past that the only real difference between the Deskwriter >and Deskjet is the software driver and outline fonts made especially for the >Mac. This is not true. The DeskWriter can handle 57.6 Kbaud and has a different data comrpession scheme that achieves much greater throughput than the DeskJet or DeskJet+ do on the Mac. The only thing that comes close is the Grappler (LX?) which uses a serial to parallel converter to up the baud rate to the DeskJet+ (Mac -> high speed serial -> parallel -> DJ+). Also the DeskWriter was designed for the Mac and what this amounts to is many small design details that enhance throughput and ease of integration with the Macintosh. Steven Miller Vancouver Division Hewlett Packard <-- DANGER DANGER, HP employee, DANGER DANGER!