David.Anderson@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (10/28/87)
[Let's have some comments on these new cheaper PS printers!] [Aren't they shipping yet?] Our community newspaper business has grown to the point where we can no longer stand not having our own PostScript printer. The obvious choice seems to be an Apple LaserWriter Plus, which we can buy at a good price, but before taking the plunge, I do have a few remaining concerns and questions. Canon stopped making the print engines used in the LW and LW+ some months ago. Apple can't have an infinite supply, and Apple's recent price breaks on their printers indicate to me that they may be trying to eliminate their inventory over the next few months, presumeably in time for new product introductions. This leads to a couple of concerns: that support for the LW will remain strong for only a few years, and then dwindle; and that we'll miss out on a great new printer by only a few months. In spite of the heavy discount we can get on an Apple printer, some of these new printers such as the AST TurboLaser PS, the NEC SilentWriter 890(?) (the LED printer) and offerings from Qume and others are still cheaper (some are available to us for under $3K). They seem offer more memory (usually 3Mb) and unknown print quality, reliability, and service records. Do any of you have experience with these $3995-4795 (retail) PS printers? Are they completely LW+ compatible (for instance, do Adobe's downloaded fonts work)? I assess our needs as follows: Our volume is quite low -- currently well under 100 pages a month, and unlikely to grow beyond 300-400, even with a printer in house -- so the longer print engine lifetimes of the new printers aren't much of a factor for us. More important will be long-term service and maintenance; I hope to be using this printer 10 years from now. More memory would be nice, but doesn't seem crucial, same with faster printing, or even more so. Higher resolution would be worth paying or waiting for, but doesn't seem likely at these price levels for some time. Most of our output is for tabloid sized pages, so a larger format printer would be a boon. Comments? --- David Anderson, CMU CSD graduate student uucp: ..!seismo!cmucspt!dba (?) ARPA: dba@cs.cmu.edu