hak@cooper.cooper.EDU (Jeff Hakner) (01/03/90)
I just received an ad for a Postscript plug-in cartridge for the Hp LaserJet II. The company is TSA, and the price is $699. I would greatly appreciate answers to the following: 1) Who else makes these boards, and at what prices? 2) We already have a large number of troff users who rely on the jetroff package, which uses standard PCL to print ditroff on the HP. How will we be able to use PCL, if at all? 3) I assume PS will be much faster for just about everything. Therefore, I'd like to use it with troff. Where out there are the troff->PS converters? 4) The ad claims "100% PS compatability". How true? Please EMAIL, I will summarize: hak%meagan.cooper.edu@CMCL2.NYU.EDU Jeff Hakner Cooper Union Computer Center New York, NY
jja@etana.tut.fi (Ahola Jari) (01/04/90)
From article <1991@cooper.cooper.EDU>, by hak@cooper.cooper.EDU (Jeff Hakner): > I just received an ad for a Postscript plug-in cartridge for > the Hp LaserJet II. The company is TSA, and the price is $699. > I would greatly appreciate answers to the following: > > 1) Who else makes these boards, and at what prices? Jan 90 Byte has an article of Pacific Data Products Pacific Page cartridge which also turns your lj series II printer to a postscript compatible one. It's priced at $695 but retails for $500 and below (check for instance the ads in the same Byte). They also have another interesting cartridge, which turns your lj to a HPGL plotter. > 2) We already have a large number of troff users who rely on > the jetroff package, which uses standard PCL to print ditroff > on the HP. How will we be able to use PCL, if at all? Postscript mode can be changed back to PCL via programming and front panel controls. > 3) I assume PS will be much faster for just about everything. > Therefore, I'd like to use it with troff. Where out there > are the troff->PS converters? Pacific Page prints at the speed of one third of the Apple Laserwriter II. > 4) The ad claims "100% PS compatability". How true? > Printed all they fed to it and correctly. > Jeff Hakner > Cooper Union Computer Center > New York, NY -jja Jari 'jja' Ahola |Tampere University of Technology, Signal Processing Lab Opiskelijankatu 16A12 |P.O. Box 527, 33101 Tampere, Finland 33720 Tampere, Finland|Tel (intl) 358 31 162708 (work)/358 31 174009 (home) Puh. 931-174009 |Net address: jja@tut.fi, AHOLA@FINTUTA (BITNET), bix:jja
dkazdan@cwsys2..CWRU.Edu (David Kazdan) (01/04/90)
Has anyone heard anything about the Postscript cartridge for the HPIIP, like if it has been marketed yet? --David
amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (01/04/90)
In article <10576@etana.tut.fi>, jja@etana.tut.fi (Ahola Jari) writes: > Jan 90 Byte has an article of Pacific Data Products Pacific Page cartridge > which also turns your lj series II printer to a postscript compatible one. > It's priced at $695 but retails for $500 and below (check for instance the ads > in the same Byte). Pacific Page's cartridge uses PheonixPage, which is fine unless you want to use Adobe fonts. HP has a cartridge with Adobe PostScript in it for about $995 (I don't know what the street price is). For churning out documents and Illustrations that use the "basic four" typefaces (Times, Helevtica, Courier, & Symbol) though, the Pacific Data Products cartridge should work fine. Disclaimer: not having a LaserJet, I haven't had much chance to play with either of these. Caveat Emptor. Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation --
prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson) (01/04/90)
In article <1676@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > HP has a cartridge with Adobe PostScript in it for about $995 > (I don't know what the street price is). Canon has also released a cartridge with real Adobe PostScript in it for all their laser printers. Is there anyone who'd had a chance to try it yet? -- Robert Claeson E-mail: rclaeson@erbe.se ERBE DATA AB
tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) (01/06/90)
I just test out the Pacific Page PostScript clone cartridge in a LaserJet series II printer. Sells for $699 cdn. It does PostScript from the few sources I was able to try, Windows 286 with Corel Draw 1.1 as well as some other howm brew rudimentry stuff. It is slow. Real slow. I don't think the hardware in the Series II is any screaming processor at best and the cartridge does not contain any coprocessor. It is ROM and EPROM inside with a few PALs. It did do a nice job on the things I tried but it was relatively slow. WordPerfect 5.0 will run a laserjet II at rated speed in PCL mode. In PS mode with Pacific page it will not. It gives you very great flexibility but if you want to do desktop publishing a lot or use large varieties of fonts, get a real PostScript printer. (And if you want to avoid hastles get an Adobe PostScript printer... no I don't work for Adobe, there are just many things that Adobe does right (maybe for the wrong reasons but...)) You CAN switch to PCL mode with Pacific Page. The one I had did NOT work with the LaserJet IIP yet. I hear there is a new one expected for that. I don't know, but I think it will work with the IID. When the IIP version comes out I might be using one at home where speed doesn't count. tj
tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) (01/06/90)
I just read in Seybold outlook on professional computing that the Pacific Page 11P is out and is significantly faster than the II version and compares quite well with a LaserWriter IINT on many things including text and graphics intensive applications. They also say that HP AND Adobe are expected to release a product in Jan or Feb. All the Pacific Page products require you to have 2 meg memory expansion. tj