info-vax (12/05/82)
>From FRANK@UTAH-20 Sat Dec 4 16:45:58 1982
Mail-From: ARPANET host SANDIA rcvd at 30-Nov-82 2346-PST
Mail-From: ARPANET site UTAH-20 rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0044-MST
To: reid@SU-SHASTA@SU-AI, mark.umcp-cs@UDEL-RELAY
Cc: info-vax@SANDIA
In-Reply-To: Your message of 27-Nov-82 1645-MST
Remailed-Date: 4 Dec 1982 1047-PST
Remailed-From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff5 at SRI-CSL>
Remailed-To: Info-VAX@SRI-CSL: ;
While I agree with almost everything that Brian said, one point about the
xerox 2700 may be worth considering:
Xerox is more than happy to rent you a 2700 on a month-to-month lease for
about $600 per month (including, I think, 10,000 copies). Thus, it remains
a minimal-commitment arrangement while you wait for something reasonable
to come along. Considering you have to shell out $20K or so to purchase
any of the other options, the rental of the xerox 2700 in the interim may
be worth considering.
Also, the Unilogics people (Scribe) have told us that the 2700 will
be supported for normal Scribe work as part of the "basic" package (i.e.,
it won't be an extra charge driver). Thus, once again, if you are a Scribe
user, renting a 2700 for the short term may represent a low-risk
alternative.
Finally, it's not totally clear if the DEC LN01 (based on the 2700 marking
engine) has al the restrictions of the xerox 2700. In particular, we have
heard several people inside of DEC claim that w/ the LN01 you will be able
to send arbitrary bit maps (something you cannot currently do with the
2700).
-------info-vax (12/05/82)
>From reid%Shasta@SU-Score Sat Dec 4 16:55:28 1982
Mail-From: ARPANET host SANDIA rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0026-PST
Mail-From: ARPANET site SU-SCORE rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0126-MST
Mail-From: SU-NET host Shasta rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0026-PST
To: Randy Frank <FRANK@UTAH-20>
Cc: mark.umcp-cs@UDEL-RELAY, info-vax@SANDIA
In-Reply-To: Your message of 1 Dec 1982 0040-MST.
Remailed-Date: 4 Dec 1982 1047-PST
Remailed-From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff5 at SRI-CSL>
Remailed-To: Info-VAX@SRI-CSL: ;
The last I heard from DEC engineering, through my contacts out here at
the DEC Western Research Lab in Palo Alto, the LN01 as delivered will
not be able to print bitmaps. It's basically not possible to print
full-page bitmaps over a Unibus given their speed and addressing
capability; you must have some kind of a controller between the
computer and the printer. Whether that controller is a full-page frame
buffer (12 megabits for the LN01) or a clever synthesis interface like
the Imagen printer uses, you can't send that kind of traffic over a
Unibus. So if they are getting it to work at all with bitmaps, they are
either building a much fancier controller, building an SBI interface or
a Massbus interface (both expensive), or pulling some trick that I
can't even imagine.
I'll believe a 2700 printing Interpress (or any other
Scribe-generatable format) when I see it. I'm not holding my breath. If
those guys really wanted to make printers and not glorified
typewriters, they could have done so a long time ago.info-vax (12/05/82)
>From LUCAS@CMU-PSY-A@CMUA Sat Dec 4 17:07:08 1982
Mail-From: ARPANET host SANDIA rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0745-PST
Mail-From: ARPANET site CMU-CS-A rcvd at 1-Dec-82 0841-MST
Mail-From: CMUFTP host CMU-PSY-A received by CMU-10A at 1-Dec-82 10:39:47-EST
To: INFO-VAX@SANDIA@CMU-CS-A
Remailed-Date: 4 Dec 1982 1047-PST
Remailed-From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff5 at SRI-CSL>
Remailed-To: Info-VAX@SRI-CSL: ;
We have just begun a trial lease of a Xerox 2700 and, while it leaves
much to be desired, I feel that Brian Reid's criticisms of the machine are
a bit overstated:
--It is true that the 2700 is not nearly as flexible as the 9700, but it
WILL accept down loaded fonts (on a page-by-page basis if necessary)
and allows up to maybe 3 or 4 fonts to be stored simultaneously and
arbitrarily mixed on a page. Text may be positioned at arbitrary
absolute positions, and it can draw vertical and horizontal lines
of nearly any width (no diagonals, though). It's resolution of
300 dots/inch is identical to the 9700's.
--At 12 pages/min, it is rather more than marginally faster than a
double-daisy printer. It is also faster than the Canon LPB-10
which is spec'd at 10 pages/min.
--At $19K, I believe it is the least expensive of the currently available
choices. More interestingly, it can be leased it for about $600/month,
plus a page charge after 5000 copies. This includes the same kind of
quick-response maintenance that Xerox provides for their copiers.
On the other hand, here are our most serious complaints about the 2700:
--Xerox refuses to provide detailed technical information about such things
as font file formats. (If anybody manages to figure out how to create
new fonts, we'd sure like to hear about it.)
--The apparent inability to download bitmap graphics is most unfortunate.
--The limits on number of fonts/page and overall page complexity imposed
by the device's memory limitations may turn out to be a problem, but we're
not sure yet.
As for advice: I completely agree that now is not quite the
time to buy a bottom of the line laser printer. In this regard, the
ability to lease the 2700 and to have Xerox maintain it is the best thing
that machine has going for it.
After surveying our options, our decision was to lease a 2700 on
a fairly short-term basis, and to wait until something better comes along.
-Pete Lucas