cgwst@UNIX.CIS.PITT.EDU (Charles G. Watson) (07/31/90)
I have a HP LaserJet III, a very nice printer by the way. I am interested in people's reactions to the PostScript boards offered by HP, PDP, etc. How is the Postscript emulation? I am specifically interested in how it performs with Apple Macintosh output. I know there are problems inherent in the Mac's PS output, but I think I have the utilities to fix it. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks, gray gray@med.pitt.edu
cjroehrig@POPPY.UWATERLOO.CA (Chris J. Roehrig) (08/12/90)
In article <9008061928.AA10199@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU> cgwst@UNIX.CIS.PITT.EDU (Charles G. Watson) writes: > >I have a HP LaserJet III, a very nice printer by the way. > >I am interested in people's reactions to the PostScript boards offered by >HP, PDP, etc. How is the Postscript emulation? I am specifically interested >in how it performs with Apple Macintosh output. I know there are problems >inherent in the Mac's PS output, but I think I have the utilities to fix it. > I don't know about Mac output, but we are using a LJIII with PDP Pacific Page Personal Postscript on a NeXT machine. I was quite disappointed in the Pacific Page cartridge (enough to exchange it for a place on the waiting list for the HP one!) The biggest fault with it is that it doesn't render downloaded fonts correctly (e.g. LaTeX Computer Modern font: all horizontal lines are thicker than they should be (compared to an LN03, a LaserWriter, the NeXT printer and an imagen), which makes the text look blotty. It looks gross.) The 35 Postscript fonts look fine, but I haven't done any extensive comparisons of them. Pacific Page cartridge is an emulation of Postscript; it is not licenced by Adobe and only approximates what Postscript output looks like. The HP cartridge is an authentic Adobe-licenced interpreter. It works fine. Other things I didn't like about the Pacific Page: No error messages to indicate bad postscript or out of memory; printing just stops. No access to menu options (parallel/serial, baud rate, Resolution enhancement, etc.) You have to reboot the printer in (native) HPCL mode to change these things. Display and panel keys are poorly handled. E.g., the display sometimes gets screwed up (funny characters appear); the "working..." light is the formfeed light instead of the Ready light that HP uses (and sometimes it blinks even when idle. The manual says not to worry about it!) The on-/off-line button doesn't appear to work (although the online light does turn on and off!) The print density is too high, even when the printer is set to the lightest setting (9). The HP cartridge doesn't have any of the above problems. Note that both the PDP and the HP cartridge take over the entire machine; you can't use native HPCL mode at all. The PDP cartridge allows you to reboot the printer in the other mode by sending it an escape sequence or by using a key sequence on the panel. This causes the printer to actually reboot (start-up test, etc.) which takes about 30 seconds to a minute. It can be similarly rebooted back to Postscript mode. The HP cartridge must be physically removed to use HPCL mode (which requires a power-down). The HP cartridge not only provides menus to change system options, but also memory to store them separately from the native HPCL mode parameters. Oh, and the PDP cart. only supports RS232 serial interface at 9600 and 19200 baud (HP supports both RS232 and RS422). (This shouldn't have much relevance, unless you're soldering up your own printer cables.) The HP Cartridge is $580 CDN around here (research/educational price), and the PDP one is $590. If it's not blindingly clear, the conclusion is: Get the HP one! Disclaimer: I'm just a dissatisfied customer shooting his mouth off! Chris Roehrig (croehrig@audiolab.waterloo.edu) Audio Research Group University of Waterloo, Canada