jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) (04/06/91)
ehrlich@cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich) writes: >Hello, >I am interested in hearing from people who have used or evaluated the TI >MicroLaser P35 PostScript printer. We've had one here for about 4 months. I am very pleased with it. First the questions. Specifically I am looking for: > 1) How complete is the PostScript implementation? Full. Have not had a single problem to date. > 2) Does it fail with documents produced by some packages? Nope. > 3) Does a minimal configuration have enough RAM memory to print > large documents? Yep. The only instance where the manual notes that the default RAM may be insufficient is when you download many fonts or if you print legal pages. If you use the internal fonts and/or print graphics, you'll have no problems. > 4) What kind of memory does the printer use (standard 1Mb SIMMs > hope :-)? Nope. TI NEVER does anything standard. The memory comes on little expansion boards that have surface mount chips soldered front and back. > 5) Sources for the printer, memory, and supplies. we bought ours at Soft Warehouse here in Atlanta. This is probably the worst computer store I've ever dealt with but the prices are the best. When I bought my printer, I got home with it (a 2 hour drive), I found that they had opened the box, stolen the toner cartridge, and sealed the box back. (This week I bought an SCSI controller there which was bad, as is about 50% of what I buy there. Called for a replacement and had to take a more expensive one because the other one was out of stock. I prepaid with a credit card to make sure the unit was reserved. When my wife got there (4 hours of driving now invested), the bastards had sold the board to someone else! If you buy from Soft Warehouse, force them to open the box, inspect everything and make 'em plug it in and test it.) The nice part is that the TI uses a separate drum, developer cartridge and toner cartridge. Assuming you buy the toner discounted, the operating cost is minimal. The toner kit from TI comes with a toner cartridge, a fuser roller pad and a spent toner tank. There is one real pisser that is vintage TI that you should be aware of. There is a small DIN-style fuse embedded in the side of the spent toner tank. When the printer thinks it's time for new toner, it blows this fuse! This happens at about 3000 sheets. This is designed to force you to replace the toner kit and not use refills. One can pop the fuse out and replace it with one from Radio Shack but it IS a real pisser that they do this sneaky trick. All and all, I like the printer and would buy another on another opportunity. Soft Warehouse sells the minimum printer for about $1400 which is about the cheapest PostScript printer going. If you can possibly find another dealer other than Soft Warehouse, then do so. John >-- >Dan Ehrlich - Sr. Systems Programmer - Penn State Computer Science ><ehrlich@cs.psu.edu>/Voice: +1 814 863 1142/FAX: +1 814 865 3176 -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | jgd@dixie.com |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | jgd@dixie.com |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it
wolfgang@wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) (04/08/91)
jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes [about the TI MicroLaser P35 PostScript printer] >There is a small DIN-style fuse embedded in the side of the spent toner >tank. When the printer thinks it's time for new toner, it blows this >fuse! This happens at about 3000 sheets. This is designed to >force you to replace the toner kit and not use refills. One can pop >the fuse out and replace it with one from Radio Shack but it IS >a real pisser that they do this sneaky trick. Hmm. TI certainly wins my dishonest engineering award for that one. (What next, computers that blow their cpu's after a certain number of cycles?) I would be very tempted to cut a few PC board traces, or at least install a small several ohm resistor instead of the fuse. Anyone have the schematics for this sucker yet? -wolfgang -- Wolfgang Rupprecht wolfgang@wsrcc.com (or) uunet!wsrcc!wolfgang Snail Mail Address: Box 6524, Alexandria, VA 22306-0524
dpm@cs.cmu.edu (David Maynard) (04/10/91)
>jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes [about the TI MicroLaser P35 >PostScript printer] >>There is a small DIN-style fuse embedded in the side of the spent toner >>tank. When the printer thinks it's time for new toner, it blows this >>fuse! This happens at about 3000 sheets. This is designed to >>force you to replace the toner kit and not use refills. One can pop >>the fuse out and replace it with one from Radio Shack but it IS >>a real pisser that they do this sneaky trick. Actually, this isn't quite accurate. The printer blows the fuse as soon as you install a new consumable. When it blows the fuse, it restarts its counters on how long that consumable should last. I found this out when I first bought my microLaser. Apparently some of the cartridges have "tough" fuses that the microLaser can't burn. My printer wouldn't work becuase it couldn't burn the fuse on the OPC drum. TI tech support told me to use a 9V battery to manually blow the fuse and then gave me a magic button sequence (which I've forgotten) to reset the internal fuse flags. After that, the printer worked great. I doubt that TI intended the feature as a method of preventing you from using refilled cartridges, but I guess they could have. I see it more as a nice feature that reminds me when I need to change supplies (and clean things, etc). I'm sure you could perform some combination of magic if you really wanted to use refills. -David -- David P. Maynard (dpm@cs.cmu.edu) Dependable Solutions & CMU ECE Pittsburgh, PA 15213 --
jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) (04/11/91)
dpm@cs.cmu.edu (David Maynard) writes: >Actually, this isn't quite accurate. The printer blows the fuse as soon as >you install a new consumable. When it blows the fuse, it restarts its >counters on how long that consumable should last. You are correct. What an interesting concept. I had assumed that when I pulled the old bottle out and saw the fuse blown while the new one was intact, that it had been blown when the toner ran out. Never occured to me that it might be a change indicator. I have some more information re the Microlaser that anyone should consider before buying one. We bought the "minimal postscript" unit that contains only 17 fonts and 1 meg of RAM. We did this based on the strength of information given us by the salesman that when we needed more RAM and/or the full postscript implementation, we could upgrade with a moderately inexpensive board. WRONGO!! We hit the memory limit yesterday with a complex print involving a couple of downloaded fonts. I called the IT order line today. Asked for the upgrade kit. No such kit exists. What you CAN buy is the postscript board for the full 35 font implementation (which contains exactly 4 ROMS and a couple of TTL packs). This beauty costs >>>>>>>> $1000 <<<<<<<< That would push the cost of the printer to over $2400 which is ridiculous. There are vastly better machines available, not the least of which is the NEC postscript printer that comes with 2 paper bins and a place to pour toner from an honest to gosh bottle as opposed to expensive little plastic cartridge. To further gauge the TI ripoff, consider some other accessory prices: Developer Cartridge Kit. PN 2559880-0001 $130.00 OPC Cartridge Kit. PN 2559881-0001 $160.00 Tech Ref Manual. PN 2559876-0001 $40.00 Maintenance Ref Manual. PN 2559877-0001 $95.00 Serial interface board. PN 2555741-0002 $49.00 1 MB memory. 2555739-0001 $345.00 Env Feeder. 2559875-0001 $395.00 Paper Feeder. 2559874-0001 $395.00 Letter Paper Tray. 2559882-0001 $79.00 The paper feeder and envelope feeder in particular are complete rips. Same with the RAM. I had to buy another meg of RAM, which I got discounted at about $240. TI did it's own little proprietary board instead of using industry standard SIMMs or SIPS which would cost right now about $50 per meg. Learn from my experience. Don't get burned. (Yes it was me awhile back singing the praises of the machine. Loss- leaders always look good until you poke under the cover.) John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | jgd@dixie.com |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it
dpm@cs.cmu.edu (David Maynard) (04/11/91)
Since there has been a lot of interest in the TI microLaser recently, I decided to summarize some of my experiences and suggestions that I've often privately mailed to people. > 1 MB memory. 2555739-0001 $345.00 Yes, TI's upgrade prices are absurd! Luckily, there are now 3rd-party memory boards for the microLaser. They are currently selling for about $90 for a 1Meg expansion board. Many of the dealers are offering a lifetime warranty on their memory boards. I found 1.5Meg to be too little memory for complex documents (combining Scribe and FrameMaker). I haven't had any problems with 2.5Meg though. > ... What you CAN buy is the postscript board for the full 35 font > implementation (which contains exactly 4 ROMS and a couple of TTL packs). > This beauty costs >>>>>>>> $1000 <<<<<<<< The (relatively old) CompuAdd catalog I have lists the 35-font PostScript board as selling for $599. That is probably still a little high, but at least it indicates that you might find it cheaper somwhere else. If you do buy the upgrade, be sure you get the newest revision that includes ATM in ROM. The board I have is v3.635 and only has 1 or 2 ROMS on a TINY board. I've been told NOT to buy the overpriced envelope feeder because it doesn't work well and only holds a few envelopes. People who need multiple trays might be better off with something like the Panasonic 4455 or one of the other brands. For me, the main selling points for the TI were the compact size and the fact that its single tray holds 250 sheets (more than many). It also doesn't have any flimsy protruding trays for my cat to sit on (or break off). Shoppers should also be aware the that RS232/Appletalk board is optional. Most Mac dealers quote prices that include the board; most PC dealers don't. The combined Appletalk/RS232 board was ~$125 when I bought mine. The RS232-only board was cheaper but harder to find. I opted for the Appletalk board to improve the printer's resale value. The advice I give anyone considering the microLaser is to look in "MacWeek" (or even one of the monthly Mac magazines) to find the best prices. I've had only limited experience with the companies that advertise there, but prices have been dropping weekly as the TI's become more popular with Mac users. You can almost buy a PS35/XL for the same price I paid for a regular PS35 last August. Even if you prefer to buy from a local dealer, it is best to know the current market pricing. -David -- David P. Maynard (dpm@cs.cmu.edu) Dependable Solutions & CMU ECE Pittsburgh, PA 15213 --
opsrjh@uccvma.ucop.edu (Richard Hintz) (04/16/91)
In article <1991Apr10.040605.28078@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> dpm@cs.cmu.edu (David Maynard) writes: ... >couldn't burn the fuse on the OPC drum. TI tech support told me to use a 9V >battery to manually blow the fuse and then gave me a magic button sequence >(which I've forgotten) to reset the internal fuse flags. After that, the >printer worked great. Here is a way to get past the hated Waste Toner Full message which accompanies a blown fuse: 1. Turn printer off and wait 30 seconds. 2. Press gray Select and blue Printer Setup buttons at the same time and hold. 3. Turn on printer. 4. Release buttons when printer beeps. The LCD display should read PCU DIAG MODE. 5. Press and hold the two gray buttons labelled Up and Previous until the LCD display changes to read Fuse Flag Reset. 6. Release the buttons. 7. Turn printer off. 8. Wait 10 seconds. 9. Turn printer on and try printing. Richard Hintz opsrjh@uccvma.ucop.edu University of California
opsrjh@uccvma.ucop.edu (Richard Hintz) (04/16/91)
In article <9472@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes: >The paper feeder and envelope feeder in particular are complete rips. >Same with the RAM. I had to buy another meg of RAM, which I got >discounted at about $240. TI did it's own little proprietary board >instead of using industry standard SIMMs or SIPS which would cost >right now about $50 per meg. Cheapest prices I've seen are from MacCenter (800) 950-3726, (512) 476-7466, memory for $95, for instance. Richard Hintz opsrjh@uccvma.ucop.edu University of California