butzer@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan Butzer) (12/02/89)
I need to purchase a small Postscript (or Postscript clone) laser printer
for use with a small network of mac's. I'd rather not pay the cost of
Apple's Laserwriter IINT if at all possible.
Desired features:
* Appletalk Port
* Enough memory to do fairly complex macdraw II drawings
(circuit schematics), or the ability to add memory
* A cannon engine would be nice, I'd appreciate comments on the virtues of
cannon vs ricoh engines.
* Cheaper than a IINT
I am especially interested in hearing from people who bought one and are happy
with their unit. Info on what it cost and good dealers would be helpful.
If you care to respond by mail, I'll summarize to save bandwidth, or just
go ahead and post it. I'll see it either way. Thanks in advance.
Regards
--Dan
--
Dan Butzer || butzer@cis.ohio-state.edu
IICF/CIS Hardware Support || voice: 614-292-7350 fax: 614-292-9021
"Fire in the hole..." || 2036 Neil Ave, Columbus OH 43210knapp@cs.utexas.edu (Edgar Knapp) (12/04/89)
In article <74626@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Dan Butzer <butzer@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: > >I need to purchase a small Postscript (or Postscript clone) laser printer >for use with a small network of mac's. I'd rather not pay the cost of >Apple's Laserwriter IINT if at all possible. [...] I have been using an Abaton QuickStep PostScript clone for two months, and I pretty happy with it. This printer, as the Panther by La Cie and the DirectPrint by Jasmine are based on Qume's CrystalPrint equipment. The advantages, as I see them, are: - The printer is blazingly fast, much faster than a IINT. - It is significantly cheaper than the IINT. Educators can get one for $2600.- from Abaton. Otherwise, the cost is $3000.- for the Jasmine and Qume units. - It comes with 39 built-in fonts, instead of the standard 35. - The support of the printer by Abaton and even Qume is exceptionally good. Naturally, there are disadvantages as well: - Adding Toner is a pretty messy job. - Printing envelopes seems impossible (if someone has figured out how to do it, please let me know). - It does not work with Adobe fonts (Cassady&Greene, BitStream, etc. work just great). - Some software which depends on special non-standard capabilities of the IINT does not work with it (e.g. most products by Emerald City Software). Also, there is a recent article in MacWorld (October 89, page 120 ff.) reviewing laser printers for the Mac. The review of the CrystalPrint, however is based on the (outdated) 2.x version of the firmware. After my update to 3.02 (which was done at no charge by Qume) I have had no compatibility problems with standard PostScript. Edgar (knapp@cs.utexas.edu)