rwi@naucse.UUCP (Robert Wier) (12/12/88)
Has anyone out there had any experience yet with the Jasmine
LaserPrinter? I've seen an ad in MacUser recently, and spent
*DAYS* trying to get through the busy signal on their phone lines
to request some literature. The ad states that it has fewer moving
parts than competeting brands, is generally faster, has PostScript,
and is under $4,000. When I finally got through, the fella said that
it would be a week or so before they could send anything. Does
this mean it's vaporware? What with Jasmine's rep as a maker of
fine disk drives, I would assume that maybe their advertising just
got a bit ahead of their delivery schedule.
Any comments gratefully accepted as we are in the market (or will be
soon) for a couple of more PS compatible printers.
-Bob Wier at Flagstaff, Arizona Northern Arizona University
College of Engineering *usual disclaimers*
NAU Box 15600 ...arizona!naucse!rwi
Flagstaff, Az. BITNET: WIER@NAUVAX
86011 602-523-2052
(note: Bitnet node NAUVAX may not be
known yet to all stations)
College Motto: "The highest level of engineering in the Southwest
(7,000 feet)"hgw@julia.math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong) (12/13/88)
In article <1055@naucse.UUCP> rwi@naucse.UUCP (Robert Wier) writes: > > > Has anyone out there had any experience yet with the Jasmine > LaserPrinter? I've seen an ad in MacUser recently, and spent > *DAYS* trying to get through the busy signal on their phone lines > to request some literature. The ad states that it has fewer moving > parts than competeting brands, is generally faster, has PostScript, > and is under $4,000. When I finally got through, the fella said that > it would be a week or so before they could send anything. Does > this mean it's vaporware? What with Jasmine's rep as a maker of To be fair, ads for magazines go in months in advance. I guess it vaporware now since the ad is out but buy no fault of Jasmine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harold Wong (213) 825-9040 UCLA-Mathnet; 3915F MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555 ARPA: hgw@math.ucla.edu BITNET: hgw%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT
rwi@naucse.UUCP (Robert Wier) (12/13/88)
As a followup to my earlier listing requesting information on the
new Jasmine DirectPrint Laserprinter, I have now received a printed
spec sheet (much faster than the rep on the phone had led me to
expect). Some of the relevant features are:
Casio LCS-130 "Marking Engine"
Weitek XL-8200 (4Mhz) processor
1MB ROM, 3MB RAM
Appletalk, Centronics parallel, and RS-232 C ports
11 built in fonts
6 pages/minute max thruput
"Postscript-compatible command set"
100 sheets of Letter, legal, A4, A5, 16 to 21 pound single sheet
or transparency overhead film
printable surface on letter sized sheet is 8.0 by 10.5 inches
15.7" wide, 13.4" deep, 9.1" high
weigs 35.2 lbs
Now, has anybody actually used one? How about toner cartridges?
Anyone familiar with this print engine? How many copies/cart?
"Price lists and additional product specs will be sent within
two to four weeks."
thanks -
-Bob Wier at Flagstaff, Arizona Northern Arizona University
College of Engineering *usual disclaimers*
NAU Box 15600 ...arizona!naucse!rwi
Flagstaff, Az. BITNET: WIER@NAUVAX
86011 602-523-2052
(note: Bitnet node NAUVAX may not be
known yet to all stations)
College Motto: "The highest level of engineering in the Southwest
(7,000 feet)"shiffman%basselope@Sun.COM (Hank Shiffman) (12/13/88)
The Jasmine Laser Printer is manufactured by Qume. I got a good look at one of these at Comdex. The printer uses a RISC processor which was designed as a printer controller and runs a PostScript clone that Qume developed. It has a liquid crystal shutter mechanism. They were demonstrating that it printed the same page as an Apple Laserwriter NT in about a third the time. Print quality was damn near identical to the NT, without the banding the NT produced when printing large black areas. Physically, the Qume is about the same height and about two thirds as long as the NT. Personally, I would want some more assurance about the compatibility of their PostScript-like language with the Real Thing(TM) from Adobe before I'd consider buying one of these. If all the usual suspects work correctly with the Qume then it would be an awfully attractive alternative to offerings from Apple/QMS/etc. -- Hank Shiffman (415) 336-4658 AI Product Marketing Technical Specialist ...!sun!shiffman Sun Microsystems, Inc. shiffman@Sun.com Zippy sez: An INK-LING? Sure -- TAKE one!! Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS??
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (12/13/88)
In article <81243@sun.uucp> shiffman@sun.UUCP (Hank Shiffman) writes: >Personally, I would want some more assurance about the compatibility >of their PostScript-like language with the Real Thing(TM) from Adobe >before I'd consider buying one of these. If all the usual suspects >work correctly with the Qume then it would be an awfully attractive >alternative to offerings from Apple/QMS/etc. Specifically, what does it do about downloadable Adobe fonts? They all come encrypted and rely on the 'eexec' operator, which as far as I know is only a part of Adobe PostScript, and not random PostScript clones. The ability to use Adobe fonts is a big reason why people want printers with Adobe PostScript in them. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." cmcl2!esquire!sbb | esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu | - David Letterman
shiffman%basselope@Sun.COM (Hank Shiffman) (12/14/88)
In article <900@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: >The ability to use Adobe fonts is a big reason why people want >printers with Adobe PostScript in them. Well, they won't get it with the Jasmine/Qume. It uses Bitstream fonts, rather than Adobe. -- Hank Shiffman (415) 336-4658 AI Product Marketing Technical Specialist ...!sun!shiffman Sun Microsystems, Inc. shiffman@Sun.com Zippy sez: Uh-oh -- WHY am I suddenly thinking of a VENERABLE religious leader frolicking on a FORT LAUDERDALE weekend?
englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (12/14/88)
Every major PostScript printer out there today uses Adobe. I can't
imagine this one doesn't--they would be stupid not to.
--
- Scottdavid@varian.UUCP (David Brown) (12/14/88)
In article <81243@sun.uucp>, shiffman%basselope@Sun.COM (Hank Shiffman) writes: > The Jasmine Laser Printer is manufactured by Qume.... > > Personally, I would want some more assurance about the compatibility > of their PostScript-like language with the Real Thing(TM) from Adobe > before I'd consider buying one of these. If all the usual suspects > work correctly with the Qume then it would be an awfully attractive > alternative to offerings from Apple/QMS/etc. Exactly how I feel, except I would like more proof of PostScript compatibility than the usual suspects. From my past (sad) experiences, I'd say it's the unusual suspects (i.e. the less common programs) that will cause you problems. I used to work with a Qume ScripTen Plus, which was supposed to be HP LaserJet Plus compatible. I found it to be just barely useful with MS Word (on a PC), it would produce output that wasn't quite right with Ventura, and would croak entirely with some unusual things like Textware's TPlus (troff post-processor) (Brent Byer at Textware really knows his laser printers, and uses every trick in the book to get lovely troff output from even the plain original LJ; unfortunately, it appears that Qume didn't read the book). In addition, the cartridge fonts had substantial differences in character shape and width, and fewer cartridges were offered (in particular, we eventually ended up standardizing on the "Z" (Microsoft) cartridge on the HP, which has both Times and Helvetica in popular sizes; at the the time, Qume did not offer an equivalent; I don't if they do now). Luckily we had some real HP printers around to compare the results. After complaining to Qume over the course of several months and receiving several PROM upgrades (after one upgrade, graphics output from MS Windows stopped working), we finally gave up and relegated the Qumes to word processing and started buying only real HP's. (The Qumes had other problems, like lack of indication lights or control panel to let you know what was going on, incredible bulk, the inability to add more memory beyond the standard .5mb, and slow data transfer, even on a parallel interface, but these are peripheral to the issue of compatibility). Anyway, I would read lots of reviews (which implies that the printer is actually shipping) and try out *all* of the applications that I might want to run before I would be convinced of PostScript compatibility. I would guess that PostScript would be harder to clone than HP compatibility, and from what I've heard (PC Magazine had a review about a year ago), none of the HP compatible printers on the market are 100% perfect (except for HP...). -- David Brown 415-649-4000 Orion Network Systems 1995 University Ave. Suite 350 Berkeley CA 94704 {pacbell,lll-crg,zehntel,ista,rtech,csi,kinetics}!varian!david
shiffman%basselope@Sun.COM (Hank Shiffman) (12/15/88)
In article <4863@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) writes: >Every major PostScript printer out there today uses Adobe. I can't >imagine this one doesn't--they would be stupid not to. Au contraire. They use Adobe because that was the only place to get PostScript(TM). If you use Adobe's PostScript (and pay their license fee) you can use Adobe fonts. A number of companies weren't willing to pay the license fees Adobe charges. As a result, several different PostScript clone implementations were developed. The idea is that Adobe owns their implementation and some algorithms they use but that they don't own the language itself. However, the clone developers needed a source of fonts. Since they didn't want to pay for Adobe fonts (I don't know how willing Adobe would have been to sell fonts to someone who has cloned their software) they needed an alternate source. Every clone about which I've heard relies on Bitstream fonts. -- Hank Shiffman (415) 336-4658 AI Product Marketing Technical Specialist ...!sun!shiffman Sun Microsystems, Inc. shiffman@Sun.com Zippy sez: Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR?
cramer@sun.com (Sam Cramer) (12/15/88)
>Every major PostScript printer out there today uses Adobe. I can't >imagine this one doesn't--they would be stupid not to. Unless, of course, they care about a silly little thing called "cost." Adobe postscript licenses are expensive - I've heard rumors that they are at least $100/printer. Sam Cramer sun!cramer cramer@sun.com
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/17/88)
>Every major PostScript printer out there today uses Adobe [fonts]. I can't >imagine this one doesn't--they would be stupid not to. >Unless, of course, they care about a silly little thing called "cost." But fonts are different from licensing PostScript itself. All they have to do is get the font descriptions somehow and copy them (or clone them). Fonts, both bitmap and lineshape, cannot be protected by copyright (or patent for that matter.) Only the names can be.
englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (12/24/88)
Oops--I kneweth not from whence i spake.
--
- Scott