tj@utgpu.UUCP (05/16/87)
A while back I posted my experiences with a TI 2115 PostScript 15 page per minute 300 dpi laser printer. Our second one arrived a week ago. Different story. According to TI Engineering changes were made to the Ricoh engine to correct problems. Our first printer was a pre change printer and it was quite a while before the changes were made and new units were available which explains the mega long delay for the second one. The output is still not quite as crisp as a Canon engine but it is real close and the blacks are MUCH blacker. It is a quick printer depending on the situation. The PostScript controller inside the TI is based on the 68000 like the Laser Writer so if you have something that sits there for 20 minutes chewing up the controller then things are still going to take about the same length of time on each. Straight text cooks though. You can dream up all the bad examples you want, but 90% of the time you are printing straight text and this baby is fast. I did have one case where people perceived it to be slower because the print engine is so fast that the page comes out and sits for a long time before the next does starts where the situation on the LaserWriter is the second page starts immediately when the first finished. This is because the LaserWriter print engine takes so long that the next page is ready before the previous is out! On the TI the engine is waiting for the PostScript controller. The TI was 2 pages ahead on a 10 page page document even when it appeared slower! And this was an application with a lot of bitmapped data so there was a lot of work done by the PostScript controller. The TI has HP7475, HP LaserJet, TI 855 and Diablo 630 emulations available, serial (232 and 422), parallel, and AppleTalk interfaces. It has 2 250 sheet input trays (real nice) and the ability to automatically switch or you could use one for special paper and select it under software control (real useful for office letters, letterhead first page, regular paper following pages, can be done automatically) and it can jog the output so you can seperate output easily. It also collates the right way around. This is a real plus on a 200 page book you preview before sending to the Linotronic PostScript typesetter. Reversing 200 pages takes time! The only real negative I have is that there is no manual feed. Maybe once a month we do a couple of envelopes and use the LaserWriter for this with manualfeed. We pushed around 1200 pages through since we got it 9 days ago and it still seems to be good quality. I think TI has a winner here now. They will be making the same engineering changes on our first TI 2115 to make the two the same. I will report on that process once it is completed. tj