bvs%rainier@sun.UUCP (Bruce V. Schwartz) (09/04/87)
Does anyone know what's out there in terms of color printers.
My department is thinking of getting one and we really don't know
much about the marketplace.
The only printer we've heard about is the model "4693D Color Image Printer"
that Tektronics just anounced. It is a 68020 based color image printer
with a 300 dot-per-inch thermal transfer printing engine which can display
up to 16 million colors.
List price is $8-13K. But I have no idea if it's any good.
Thanks.
*********************************************************************
"it just shows you don't ever know" Bruce V. Schwartz
Sun Microsystems
(415) 691-2532, (415) 960-1300
..!sun!bschwartz
bschwartz@sun.COM
*********************************************************************patwood@unirot.UUCP.UUCP (09/12/87)
Adobe just showed a color PostScript printer at the Seybold conference this week. It is based on thermal tranfer technology, and will be manufactured by QMS. The system shown was a development system; the printer is expected to be available in early '88. List price will be around $20K. Pat Wood bellcore!phw5!phw
richard@gryphon.cts.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/03/87)
In article <8709211613.AA12898@brillig.umd.edu> unirot!patwood@RUTGERS.EDU (Patrick Wood) writes: >Adobe just showed a color PostScript printer at the Seybold conference >this week. It is based on thermal tranfer technology, and will be manufactured >by QMS. The system shown was a development system; the printer is expected >to be available in early '88. List price will be around $20K. $20K ?!? Thats a bit steep for what is basically a mature printer technology and a pretty much existing controller. I guess thats the initial price shock of the 300 (vs 240) dpi engine. Not to mention being the first colour PostScript printer. The output of these things is VERY good. For standard photographic images it looks a bit better than the 240 dpi engines. For graphics such as solid coloured arcs, it is simply amazing. You have to look pretty close to see the individual pixels, and only then, youcan only easily see them at 44, 46, 89, 91 etc, degrees, where the pixel aliasing is at it's worse. In other words, they had a letter taped to the wall above the unit in a hospitality suite recently. I went over and read the letter and when I first glanced at a graphic on the page, I said to myself, "offset", but on closer inspection it was obviously output of the printer below. The shapes I were looking at were rendered in magenta and cyan, and although there was 100 pecent coverage (no dithering) it was kinda light (I dont meant this nagativly, rather more in the transparent sense) and I guess because of less contrast between the pigment and paper, the aliasing was harder to see. The sales reps mumbled something about 68020's and color lasers Q2 '88. We'll see. ------------------------------------------------ As for other color printers for that price range, there is the Shinko/Mitsubishi contact your local Mits. Rep. There is the HP Paintjet for about 1300$ that is 180 dpi. There is the Xerox 4020 for about 1500 that has (IMHO) better colors, but alas it has a different horizontal than vertical dpi. There is the Calcomp Plotmaster, a 'VDI' graphics device printer, as opposed the the 'dumb' printers mentioned previously. -------------------------------------------------- Me ? I use a $199 canon inkjet, 72 dpi for quick proofs, and a color film recorder for any serious work. To forstall the attack on my mailbox, No. I dont have the address of the place that liquidated these Canon printers, but yes I think they are still available. I think it was called Federal Liquidators, and they were definitly in Wash. D.C. They advertised in BYTE 8 - 18 months ago. ------------------------------ I'm still not entirly sold on these colour thermal transfer ("wax") printers. Although the precision is very good, as are the colours and saturation. the glossy effect on a whole page printed with the stuff is a bit disconcerting. Also if you fold the output and then re-open it, you lose pigment; it "cakes" off. Also also, if you print an entire page one solid colour, you gen uneven distribution of the pigment. Some are worse than others, and many of todays lasers have a problem with this as well. I'm eager to see what the new color lasers can do. > >Pat Wood >bellcore!phw5!phw -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."
patwood@unirot.UUCP (Patrick Wood) (10/07/87)
$20K for a color PostScript printer is probably about right: the printer is based on the Mitsubishi 300DPI thermal engine, which runs about $9K. Then you have the color controller which must interpret PostScript: minimum of 2M memory (assuming that the controller performs three or four passes over the code, once for each color), probably around 6-8M (1M per color plus extra for programs, fonts, cache, etc). Maybe the printer has a disk drive like the Varityper 600DPI PS printer? That would jack up the price. Pat Wood