pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au (09/19/90)
Using HP LaserPrinters with the Mac
I am aware that one can use MacPrint, or JetLink Express with these
printers, BUT I haven't heard that they are particularly quick.
Is there any way, including going the postscript upgrade path, that will
allow me to print at a reasonable speed (say 1ppm) with or without a
spooler, to these models of LaserJet:
LaserJet
LaserJet II
LaserJet IId
LaserJet IIp
LaserJet III
LaserJet IIIp
Any info, email or post would be OK, and if there's interest I'll
summarize.
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Phil Ryan
ANU Department of Physics and Theoretical Physics
Canberra, Australia
pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au phone:(61 6) 249 4678 fax:(61 6) 249 0741 josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) (09/19/90)
In article <1990Sep19.095632.2860@csc.anu.oz.au> pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au writes: >Using HP LaserPrinters with the Mac > >I am aware that one can use MacPrint, or JetLink Express with these >printers, BUT I haven't heard that they are particularly quick. > >Is there any way, including going the postscript upgrade path, that will >allow me to print at a reasonable speed (say 1ppm) ... I've used LaserJet Express driver v1.2 (by GDT Softworks) on a Mac II driving a LaserJet III printer over 19200 baud serial line. You DO seem to get about 1ppm printing pages full of typeset text. While this is OK for a few pages, printing 100+ page books gets boring very quickly. Note that the same printer can print the same document at almost 8ppm when driven from a UNIX workstation. My guess is that the JLE driver uses QuickDraw to image a page to an off-screen bitmap which is then compressed and sent to the printer. UNIX drivers download fonts instead and use them. There is also a font limitation which dates back to the original Macintosh: bitmapped fonts can be at most 127 pixels high (in my experience). This is only about 30 pts when printed... so you cannot use large bitmapped fonts... use ATM or wait for TrueType... in summary, QuickDraw-based printer drivers have all of the limitations of QuickDraw... A solution may be to get a PostScript+AppleTalk upgrade for LJ3 from HP. See recent MacWorld (October '90?) for a review of this - they say the 68000 processor in LJ3 runs at 10MHz, which is slower than the LaserWriters. I think they have not tested HP's PostScript cartridge, though, they have probably used Pacific cartridge (a PostScript clone). -- Josip Loncaric / SRC / U. of Maryland / <josip@ra.src.umd.edu> -------------------------------------------------------------- ! Today's Special: Opinions....$0.02 each ! --------------------------------------------------------------
wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli) (09/20/90)
In article <1990Sep19.141200.12661@ra.src.umd.edu> josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) writes: >from a UNIX workstation. My guess is that the JLE driver uses QuickDraw to >image a page to an off-screen bitmap which is then compressed and sent to the >printer. UNIX drivers download fonts instead and use them. > >There is also a font limitation which dates back to the original Macintosh: >bitmapped fonts can be at most 127 pixels high (in my experience). This is >only about 30 pts when printed... so you cannot use large bitmapped fonts... >use ATM or wait for TrueType... in summary, QuickDraw-based printer drivers >have all of the limitations of QuickDraw... This issue of the limitations of QuickDraw font sizes is sort of amusing. True, most applications around still limit us to 127 point text. However, exactly what imaging model do you think ATM is using when it generates at 127x4 font for printing on a DeskWriter (which uses QuickDraw -> Agfa to set up its pages)???? No, this is a limitation of applications, not QuickDraw. (However, if applications wish to remain compatible with older systems, then the imposed limitation makes sense for them, at least.) Personally, I'd like to type my resume in 500 pt. Zapf Chancery... ;-) Regards, ******************************************************************************* * Bill Taroli (WWTAROLI@RODAN.acs.syr.edu) | "You can and must understand * * Syracuse University, Syracuse NY | computers NOW!" -- Ted Nelson * ******************************************************************************* -- ******************************************************************************* * Bill Taroli (WWTAROLI@RODAN.acs.syr.edu) | "You can and must understand * * Syracuse University, Syracuse NY | computers NOW!" -- Ted Nelson * *******************************************************************************
kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) (09/20/90)
In article <1990Sep20.035832.24900@rodan.acs.syr.edu> wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli) writes: >In article <1990Sep19.141200.12661@ra.src.umd.edu> josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) writes: ->There is also a font limitation which dates back to the original Macintosh: ->bitmapped fonts can be at most 127 pixels high (in my experience). This is ->only about 30 pts when printed... so you cannot use large bitmapped fonts... ->use ATM or wait for TrueType... in summary, QuickDraw-based printer drivers ->have all of the limitations of QuickDraw... >This issue of the limitations of QuickDraw font sizes is sort of amusing. True, >most applications around still limit us to 127 point text. However, exactly >what imaging model do you think ATM is using when it generates at 127x4 font >for printing on a DeskWriter (which uses QuickDraw -> Agfa to set up its >pages)???? No, this is a limitation of applications, not QuickDraw. (However, >if applications wish to remain compatible with older systems, then the imposed >limitation makes sense for them, at least.) The problem is not in the imaging model, but in a limitation in the BITMAP font expansion code. Glyphs in BITMAP fonts cannot be rendered if they are more than 127 pixels high -- IN THE FONT IMAGE. If you ask for a larger font size, Quickdraw images at some smaller size then uses copybits to expand the image to the desired size. An application can (successfully) ask for fonts to be rendered at up to 2000 points (most of the time), but if a BITMAP font is used, the underlying characters must be no larger than 127 PIXELS high. ATM and TrueType do not start with BITMAP fonts (well, ATM does, but only enough to make Quickdraw know the font exists). Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)
josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) (09/20/90)
In article <1990Sep20.035832.24900@rodan.acs.syr.edu> wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli) writes: >In article <1990Sep19.141200.12661@ra.src.umd.edu> josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) writes: >> >>There is also a font limitation which dates back to the original Macintosh: >>bitmapped fonts can be at most 127 pixels high (in my experience). This is >>only about 30 pts when printed... so you cannot use large bitmapped fonts... >>use ATM or wait for TrueType... in summary, QuickDraw-based printer drivers >>have all of the limitations of QuickDraw... > >This issue of the limitations of QuickDraw font sizes is sort of amusing. True, >most applications around still limit us to 127 point text. However, exactly >what imaging model do you think ATM is using when it generates at 127x4 font >for printing on a DeskWriter (which uses QuickDraw -> Agfa to set up its >pages)???? No, this is a limitation of applications, not QuickDraw. (However, >if applications wish to remain compatible with older systems, then the imposed >limitation makes sense for them, at least.) Well, check my statement above: I am talking about BITMAPPED fonts, not Adobe outline font technology. Bitmapped fonts are curently the only Apple-supported QuickDraw glyph imaging technology. If you check Inside Macintosh Vol. I, the 127 pixel limitation for FONT resources is clearly mentioned. Apple has tried to extend this to 255 pixels in Mac II (see IM page V-185), but in my personal experience, Mac II QuickDraw chokes on anything over 127 pixels high. If you dig a bit deeper, you'll find that QD Font Manager communicates via records which pack glyph height info into byte-wide fields. This means that Apple COULD fix QD to allow handling bitmapped fonts of up to 255 pixels, however, they HAVE NOT DONE IT RIGHT yet. So, until further notice, if you rely on QuickDraw to render glyphs, you'll have trouble with anything taller than 127 pixels. I've reported this as a problem to Apple, since I want to display math equations which incorporate parenthesies and integral signs taller than 127 pixels (i.e. about 30pt when printed). So far I've had no reply short of assurances that they will look into this. By the way, the same limitation applies to all QuickDraw-based printers AND screen display operations. So, if you do not have ATM fonts, you are out of luck on this one. While an application CAN override the QD bottleneck StdText and do its own glyph rendering, this is silly. Are we going ot have each developer coming up with his/her own glyph rendering technology? IMHO, Apple should take the lead here, not just by developing TrueType, but also by allowing a reasonable BITMAPPED alternative... For my personal use, I'd consider a 255-pixel limit more reasonable than the 127-pixel limit. A final comment: all of the above applies to QuickDraw printing or display operations only. The problem is not there when you print to a PostScript printer. And yes, I am using the latest system (6.0.5) on a Mac II... -- Josip Loncaric / SRC / U. of Maryland / <josip@ra.src.umd.edu> -------------------------------------------------------------- ! Today's Special: Opinions....$0.02 each ! --------------------------------------------------------------