cook@SYBIL.CS.BUFFALO.EDU (John M. Cook) (01/23/90)
I was wondering if anyone has a brother HL-8e or HL-8ps. From the reading I have done it's a great laser printer. It's said to be fully compatible with HP laserjet II series, inside and outside. If you don't like this printer tell be why yours is better. John Cook
rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (02/09/90)
In article <9002072150.AA20968@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU> cook@SYBIL.CS.BUFFALO.EDU (John M. Cook) writes: > I was wondering if anyone has a brother HL-8e or HL-8ps. From >the reading I have done it's a great laser printer. It's said to be >fully compatible with HP laserjet II series, inside and outside. If >you don't like this printer tell be why yours is better. As I recall, the HL-8e is a close but no cigar LJ II clone. I can't remember exactly what the problem was -- I think it refuses to download glyphs onto character codes 0-31. Someone recently bought JetRoff to use with this printer and we determined that it was somewhere between a LJ+ and a LJ II using the compatibility test files we have. Send mail to uunet!pcrat!jetroff for info on how to get the test files via UUCP. Note that some of the test files I posted to c.s.m. awhile back were flawed; the ones on our system are correct. In practice, JetRoff optioned for LJ II output may be the only LJ II output that the Brother can't grok, due to JR's agressive use of the PCL language. Still, I'd sleep better knowing I had full compatibility. Other clones to avoid: the Dataproducts LZR-? and relabeled by some computer system vendors. I can't remember the model number - I think the engine is rated for 12 PPM, *very* heavy, toner in a bottle, membrane keypad with about 16 keys on top right, large capacity paper tray underneath the front, paper output is to the top front and output is stacked sort of vertically. This printer has two and a half strikes against it: can't deal with negative relative dot positioning commands, and its PCL interpreter is extremely slow - the printer can't even match the 8PPM LJ II when printing PCL. The half strike is that the printer failed after about a week with a video sync problem. Actually, make that a full strike - a Dataproducts PS printer I've used (even larger and heavier, with right dual tray paper inputs and left paper output and a silly graphic display showing the paper progress through the printer in the front, 20PPM?) was also plagued with reliability problems and had poor performance to boot. If someone mails me the model numbers, I'll remember to right them down so I won't have to describe the printers this way. -Rick