info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (10/26/84)
From: engvax!KVC@cit-vax As I understand it, the DEC LN01S is a repackaged QMS laser printer. If this is true, then the "beast" is incredibly useful. We have lots of QMS's here and love them. For software support for the QMS, we went to a company called Talaris systems in San Diego (La Jolla, actually). They like to sell you their version of the QMS called the Talaris 1200, but we told them we already had a QMS and only bought software and fonts. (Since then, we've bought hardware and software from them). In any case, they provide several "support" packages for the printer: TeXSupport comes with TeX (D. E. Knuth's typesetting package), LaTeX (easy to use macros for TeX), SliTeX (make slides using TeX), and loads of TeX fonts in QMS format. This makes a wonderful high-quality document production system for VMS. They also can provide a graphics library for the QMS. The printer has Tektronix emulation, but that is very limited. The Talaris library is a lot more useful, with stuff for area fill and a better character set than Tek mode. QDRIVE is an interesting program that combines TeX output with any QMS format file (such as a graph produced from the graphics library) allowing you to put complex pictures into TeX documents. LaTeX does provide simple picture drawing within TeX, but complex graphics are usually produced by another program and then incorporated into the document with QDRIVE. If the LN01S is really a QMS in disguise (that was the consensus of a LASER-LOVERS discussion a few weeks back) then you may be able to get software from Talaris. You can also get TeX support for the QMS (and therefore the LN01S) from Texas A&M University. It isn't as complete as the Talaris stuff, but is a lot cheaper ($100). You may want to get that first and then try Talaris if it doesn't do the job. If you need the address at Texas A&M, let me know and I'll dig it up. You could also send a message to the TEX-HAX mailing list if you can find out what system that's on. For anyone confused by this, please note that the LN01S is NOT the same as the LN01. In fact, as far as I can tell, the LN01 is almost useless. If the LN01S is NOT a QMS in disguise, then I apologise for getting anyone's hopes up... /Kevin Carosso engvax!kvc @ CIT-VAX.ARPA Hughes Aircraft Co.
info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (11/05/84)
From: Richard Furuta <Furuta@WASHINGTON.ARPA> The Laser-Lovers list's consensus was that the LN01s uses the QMS interface board but different microcode. It is supposedly a superset of the LN01, not of the various QMS machines. --Rick -------