paul@ppgbms (Paul Evan Matz) (02/08/90)
Greetings,
I'm looking for a supplier of a Laser Printer that connects to
the host computer via SCSI. I have gotten a tip on two such
machines, but have no idea who distributes these, or any other
printer that fits the bill, to system integrators. The two
I've been told about are:
1) Apple LaserWriter SC (brainless laserwriter w/ SCSI interface).
2) General Computer personal laser printer (plp), and
new model (plp II) which has a memory buffer.
If any of you out there have used either of these, I'd appreciate
knowing your distributor, pricing, and comments on their operation.
I'll post a summary of responses back to comp.periphs.printers.
Thanks (wishful thinking)
_____________________________________________________________
|Regards, One Campus Drive |
|Paul Matz PPG Biomedical Systems |
|914-741-4685 Pleasantville, NY. 10570|
-------------------------------------------------------------
path ppgbms!moe!paul@philabs.philips.comneil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) (02/09/90)
In article <27290@ppgbms.UUCP> paul@ppgbms (Paul Evan Matz) writes: >I'm looking for a supplier of a Laser Printer that connects to >the host computer via SCSI. Why not use our SCSI to serial/parallel interface and pick whichever laser printer that you want? The interface is cheap, and that way, you can be very cost effective in your choice of laser printers. -- Neil Gorsuch INTERNET: neil@cpd.com UUCP: uunet!zardoz!neil MAIL: 1209 E. Warner, Santa Ana, CA, USA, 92705 PHONE: +1 714 546 1100 Uninet, a division of Custom Product Design, Inc. FAX: +1 714 546 3726 AKA: root, security-request, uuasc-request, postmaster, usenet, news
mpogue@dg.dg.com (Mike Pogue) (02/10/90)
In article <1990Feb8.213511.23705@zardoz.cpd.com> neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) writes: >Why not use our SCSI to serial/parallel interface and pick whichever >laser printer that you want? The interface is cheap, and that way, >you can be very cost effective in your choice of laser printers. Actually, I'd be interested in the same thing. With a simple SCSI -> parallel interface converter, I would think the speed would be slow. The application I have in mind is: dumb laser printer, with SCSI interface, uses peer->peer communications to grab a bitmap (large) file directly off a disk, and sends it directly to the laser in the printer. That way, I get high speed printing, from a previously spooled bitmap file, without CPU intervention to get it off disk, and send it to the laser printer. I also believe this makes the interface cheaper, since little to no intelligence is required in the interface. And it's hell-for-fast! Does the Apple Laserwriter (dumb version) do it this way? Mike Pogue Data General Corp. I speak for myself alone....
paul@ppgbms (Paul Evan Matz) (02/11/90)
In article <1990Feb8.213511.23705@zardoz.cpd.com> neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) writes: > >Why not use our SCSI to serial/parallel interface and pick whichever >laser printer that you want? The interface is cheap, and that way, >you can be very cost effective in your choice of laser printers. > The main reason for interest in SCSI is for its speed. If you want to print full page raster images, if you use a centronics interface, you can count on a transfer rate of about 5K bytes/second, or about 3 minutes per page. (This is 8 by 10.5 inches at 300 dpi). If you try this with a serial connection, well, let's not talk about it. Now, clearly, if you eliminate white space, in favor of cursor control commands, there is a way to reduce the overall amount of data to transfer. But, unfortunately, what we want to print doesn't have alot of white space always. So that's why I'm not interested in your SCSI to serial/parallel interface. Thanks, anyway. _____________________________________________________________ |Regards, One Campus Drive | |Paul Matz PPG Biomedical Systems | |914-741-4685 Pleasantville, NY. 10570| ------------------------------------------------------------- path ppgbms!moe!paul@philabs.philips.com
dlr@daver.UU.NET (Dave Rand) (02/12/90)
In article <27446@ppgbms.UUCP> paul@ppgbms.UUCP (Paul Evan Matz) writes: > >The main reason for interest in SCSI is for its speed. If you want to print >full page raster images, if you use a centronics interface, you can count on >a transfer rate of about 5K bytes/second, or about 3 minutes per page. (This >is 8 by 10.5 inches at 300 dpi). If you try this with a serial connection, >well, let's not talk about it. Perhaps another alternative: IMC Data Manager has a new box called the DM-XL100E. This has 8 or 16 serial ports (at 115Kbps), two high speed parallel ports, and an Ethernet iterface. Some time trials that I ran show it taking data over the Ethernet at a very high speed (faster than the 10 Mhz AT I was using could transmit it), and sending to an HP LJII at over 9K bytes per second over the parallel port. Apparently, this unit does not do any data compression - this was the real throughput. While it would only half the 300DPI bitmap time, it would release the computer much faster (the parallel ports can take data at over 15K/sec from a regular 10 Mhz AT, and the Ethernet is 'much' faster than this). The number for IMC is 800-537-5999 or 408-730-1112. -- Dave Rand {pyramid|hoptoad|sun|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr%daver@uunet.uu.net
neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) (02/12/90)
In article <27446@ppgbms.UUCP> paul@ppgbms.UUCP (Paul Evan Matz) writes: >In article <1990Feb8.213511.23705@zardoz.cpd.com> neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) writes: >>Why not use our SCSI to serial/parallel interface and pick whichever >>laser printer that you want? The interface is cheap, and that way, >>you can be very cost effective in your choice of laser printers. > >The main reason for interest in SCSI is for its speed. If you want to print >full page raster images, if you use a centronics interface, you can count on >a transfer rate of about 5K bytes/second, or about 3 minutes per page. (This >is 8 by 10.5 inches at 300 dpi). If you try this with a serial connection, >well, let's not talk about it. You must be looking at crummy centronics interfaces 8-). Our LOW performance model goes past 30K bytes/second on it's parallel port (takes 30 seconds per page to transfer). Our high performance model goes to the full Centronics spec of 250K bytes/second (4 seconds per page). How much speed do you want 8-) ? And for that matter, our serial ports will also do much better than 5K bytes per second, since they do arbitrary baud rates to much faster than 100K baud, but we haven't found many serial devices yet that can handle it 8-). The money you will save in being able to choose almost any laser printer will probably be far more than whatever you pay for our interface. And why be locked into a few laser printers when you can choose from almost all of them? -- Neil Gorsuch INTERNET: neil@cpd.com UUCP: uunet!zardoz!neil MAIL: 1209 E. Warner, Santa Ana, CA, USA, 92705 PHONE: +1 714 546 1100 Uninet, a division of Custom Product Design, Inc. FAX: +1 714 546 3726 AKA: root, security-request, uuasc-request, postmaster, usenet, news
cs122aw@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Alfter) (02/12/90)
I'm just curious, but does anybody even make laser printers that use SCSI or
parallel interfaces? The only interfaces I've ever seen used are AppleTalk and RS-232. Then again, my only laser-printer experience is with the Laserwriter. AppleTalk is used around here in all-Apple networks, but I've seen RS-232 used;
there's a computer lab across the street that consists of a bunch of Mac SEs
and PS/2 50s connected to a 386-based server, which is connected to a
Laserwriter IINT. The IBMs can only use the Laserwriter as a text printer, so
performance to them is good enough, but some printouts from the Macs take
forever because the Laserwriter's RS-232 input only handles 9600 baud (I
think). It's really pitiful, especially when the rest of the network runs on
Ethernet, which is faster than even AppleTalk!
Scott Alfter-------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: cs122aw@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu _/_ Apple IIe: the power to be your best!
alfter@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/ v \
saa33413@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu ( ( A keyboard--how quaint!
Bitnet: free0066@uiucvmd.bitnet \_^_/ --M. Scott, STIVneil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) (02/13/90)
In article <268@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!mpogue (Mike Pogue) writes: >In article <1990Feb8.213511.23705@zardoz.cpd.com> neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) writes: >>Why not use our SCSI to serial/parallel interface and pick whichever >>laser printer that you want? The interface is cheap, and that way, >>you can be very cost effective in your choice of laser printers. >Actually, I'd be interested in the same thing. With a simple SCSI -> parallel >interface converter, I would think the speed would be slow. What kind of Centronics interfaces are you people used to 8-) ? Again, our LOW performance model goes past 30K bytes/second, and our high performance model goes to 250K bytes/second. Also, as long as there is a noticable price difference between postscript and non-postscript laser printers because of the processing involved in postscript-to-output-bits conversions, and as long as there are double digit MIPS desktop workstations for a cheap price that are underutilized, it makes sense to install a postscript to bits-format-such-as-HP-Laser-Jet-format filter and a non-postscript laser printer and use our cheap SCSI/parallel interface. -- Neil Gorsuch INTERNET: neil@cpd.com UUCP: uunet!zardoz!neil MAIL: 1209 E. Warner, Santa Ana, CA, USA, 92705 PHONE: +1 714 546 1100 Uninet, a division of Custom Product Design, Inc. FAX: +1 714 546 3726 AKA: root, security-request, uuasc-request, postmaster, usenet, news
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (02/13/90)
In article <1990Feb12.043016.21137@zardoz.cpd.com> neil@uninet.UUCP (Neil Gorsuch) writes: > >You must be looking at crummy centronics interfaces 8-). Our LOW >performance model goes past 30K bytes/second on it's parallel port >(takes 30 seconds per page to transfer). Our high performance model >goes to the full Centronics spec of 250K bytes/second (4 seconds per >page). How much speed do you want 8-) ? And for that matter, our >serial ports will also do much better than 5K bytes per second, since >they do arbitrary baud rates to much faster than 100K baud, but we >haven't found many serial devices yet that can handle it 8-). That's right. Like there aren't any I've found EITHER! The HP line stinks in this department. The SERIAL interface, with a top baud rate of 19200, can be almost as fast as the Centronics (and it STILL Xoff's frequently at 19200!) It won't handle 38,400, which would be real nice as our Equinox board can output at that rate (for real) with almost no load on the host CPU! So who makes this laser printer with a REAL Centronics interface, or a REAL serial interface? We'd also like to find a reasonably-priced unit that can handle the data fast enough to be workable; a page per minute for light graphics, and over 5 minutes/page for full-page rasters just doesn't cut it! -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"