mark.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay@sri-unix (11/26/82)
From: Mark Weiser <mark.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay> Date: 23 Nov 82 11:39:06 EST (Tue) Who has used these, and what is your hardware/software experience with them? (I am talking about $20-30k as inexpensive, give or take a few thousand $). What kind of troff compatibility do they have (Symbolics advertises their compatibilty--does anyone else have it). What about the ease of downloading fonts or sending an entire bit-raster directly (the xerox 2700 apparently has problems here)? What's the reliability, what do you use it for, and what does the cost per page turn out to be? We are getting ready to buy one of these, and any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance... -mark
KELLOND.RX@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix (11/27/82)
Date: 26 Nov 1982 09:18 Mark, There are a number of laser printers on the market or about to be introduced into the market. These include the Xerox 2700 and offerings from Japan Inc. Some are offered as replacement printers with built in font generating ROMS which allow up to a prespecified number of Fonts. These normally support industry standard printing interfaces (RS232/Centronics) which allow normal text characters and some offer video interfaces which allow full bit mapped graphics. I expect to see the problems of sending bit-raster graphics via RS232/Centronics interfaces resolved with the introduction of better standards. As to use they are great for quiet clean high quality printouts where multi fonts or limited graphics are required. I expect these products to evolve into combined copier/scanner/laser printers/FAX machines within two/three years. I cannot comment on the US market as I am in Europe. Hope this helps. Geoff
ADF@MIT-MC@sri-unix (12/01/82)
From: Anthony Della Fera <ADF at MIT-MC> Date: 29 November 1982 17:20-EST Hello, I know of only one inexpensive Laser Printer running on a VAX. This is an IMAGEN IMPRESS-10 and is a Canon based intellegent laser printer. A frind of mine who works at the MIT Joint Computer Facility has the thing turning hand-springs and printing all kinds of useful stuff. Including rasterized vector graphics and the like. It has software fonts and isScribe compatable (he has done all the font file hacking necessary to make this trivial). The MIT-JCF community has been using the thing for about 3 months now and it is quickly replacing their numerous Diablo Qumes. It costs about $20k or so. You can get more info by contacting him, he is EB.MIKE@MIT-OZ. Happy hunting, Tony...