shapiro@ATHOS.RUTGERS.EDU (Joel Shapiro) (05/03/91)
I would like advice on the purchase/configuration of a laser printer
Situation:
Two Sun SLC's, one 386 MSDOS machine, 3 286 MSDOS machines, all
thinwire ethernetted with clarkson packet drivers supplying TCP/IP to
the PC's. Currently have 9 pin printers, the best of which is an
Epson FX850 attached to a Sun and accessible from the 386, at least,
using Clarksons lpr. No postscript, no transcript, willingness to
spend around $1400 for a laser printer to meet everyone's dreams. Low
volume expected.
Question:
What to do. In particular, is the right answer an HPLJIIP with
postscript? If so,
a) Is it possible to get postscript drivers for troff, plot,
rasterfiles, and perhaps other sources such as are in the transcript
package, from public domain sources?
b) Is it possible to configure PC MSDOS machines so that the
output of programs or keystrokes which would ordinarily go out to
the printer port will instead go to the Sun print queue appropriately.
So far, we have configured the lpr command so that an explicit command
on a file can be sent to the sun's print queue for ordinary ascii
printing, but don't know how to make this automatic. Is there software
for the PC's for screendumps, for example, which would produce acceptible
output working through this method, or would they produce postscript
high resolution rasterdumps which would take forever through the sun
serial connection to the printer.
If this is not the right (or best) solution, please suggest your
favorite alternative within the constraints. Should the printer be
nonpostscript? should it sit on the 386 instead? and so on.
Thanks
Joel Shapiro, asking on behalf of Georgian Court College.