ohy@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Yong-Chul Oh) (06/01/90)
I would like to thank to all of you who send me your opinion. I think most of you are very happy about DeskWriter. I found out HP Lasetjet IIp is working only for IBM this time. HP people said they are going to release MacInterface($275) and Postscript card($600+) in hte middle of June. Both MacInterface and PS card should use for Macintosh. GCC PLPII is another very attractive top quality printer. I think no one has an experience of GCC PLP II yet. The followings are summary from the article in MacWorld June issue. If you have any experience of this item, please let us know. It will be very helpful to us. GCC PLP II is only a few hundred dollars expensive than DeskWriter, (DeskWriter list price is $1195; PLP II's list price is $1399) but it is a real laserbeam printer. No smudged ouput. slow but still faster than DeskWriter. Much cheaper than the origianal PLP, but they fixed the drawbacks of PLP. The cartridge is $29(2500pages). Used Oki Electric OL400 printer engine. Negative:not networked printer,non postscript,Spooler like SuperMac's SuperLaserSpool is not working. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ski2@u.washington.edu Tue May 29 10:13:00 1990 I bought a Deskwriter a few months ago and like it a lot. I have no problems with the ink. It is fast as produces excellent quality output. Only 2 problems are 1) it only understands high level printing commands so utilities such as Mockprinter or Mockwrite will not work with it and 2) it is not postscript. Some Mac software requires a postscript printer. ---------- From SEIFORD@ecs.umass.edu Tue May 29 10:49:26 1990 The DeskWriter is an HP L:aserjet that has been customized for the Mac. It has a higher data transfer rate and is plug and play compatible. Our University discount made the Deskwriter cheaper than the Laserjet when you add in the cable and driver necessary for the LAserjet to work with Mac. I got a Deskwriter and l;ove it. On those printouts that I'm concerned about ink running - I just xerox a copy. Can't tell the difference between it and a LaserWriter. I love mine. larry ---------- From SEIFORD@ecs.umass.edu Tue May 29 12:22:19 1990 it was a little tricky to get FOP set up properly. I simply switched printer and modem (i.e., plugged printer into modem port and modem into printer port) and it goes fine. This is because laserwriter driver looks to appleshare (modem) port. ---------- From lewin@zariski.harvard.edu Wed May 30 01:21:32 1990 The DeskWriter works fine with a Mac (it is at heart a HP DeskJet modified extensively to be Mac-friendly), but it has the limitations of ink jet technology (smearing, problems with large black areas), and is _slow_ for anything other than straight text (i.e., about 1 page per minute I think). Also, it prints essentially line-by-line rather than page-by-page, which means that it cannot do some of the nice stuff. It is cheap though. The IIp is a real laser printer, but was not ever intended to be used with a Mac. ATM might solve some of the problems, but probably not all. All (most) IBM-type printers are based on the character-idiom, whereby the printer receives a stream of characters from the computer, with embedded codes for things such as bold, italic, etc.. On special occasions these printers operate in graphics mode, but not normally. Connected to a Mac, a IIp would be perpetually in graphics mode, for which it is not optimized. I guess I would suggest that you take a look at a GCC Technologies Personal Laser Printer. This is a true laser printer, _and_ was optimized for the Mac. It costs a bit more (list $1300 or so) but would likely be worth it in terms of quality output and lack of headaches. This printer uses the Mac's QuickDraw to produce the image, so what you see on the screen is really what you get. Another option, if you feel rich, might be the TI MicroLaser. I have neither seen this printer nor in fact heard anything about it except the specs and the price, but it sounds good: under $2500, PostScript, AppleTalk, etc.. It sounds like it should provide the functionality of an Apple LaserWriter or other "high-end" 300 dpi printer, at a much lower price. I think it's only fair to tell you that I will be an employee of GCC Technologies starting at the end of July. But this should not color my recommendation of the PLP, since I genuinely believe it offers a unique value in the affordable-laser printer arena. Good luck with your decision, and let me know how it goes! Alex ---------- From ski2@u.washington.edu Wed May 30 13:27:21 1990 Yes, I do have a problem because I am using Smalltalk-80 which requires a postscript printer. There may be other software, but I am not aware of it. It was a rude shock to me after I got my system. ---------- From @rice.edu:rwilliam@uncle-bens.rice.edu Wed May 30 13:27:44 1990 The HP Deskwriter is a solid piece of work. I've got one; the output is laser-printer quality. Further, it comes with a set of outline fonts and the outline font manager is built in to the DeskWriter printer driver. Yes, the ink can smudge (if you wet your fingers and rub it hard), but no more than any dot-matrix printer. The IIP would be a better printer, but you would have to find the right drivers. Since it is not a QuickDraw or PostScript device, it would require some serious print drivers. Hewlett Packard is the company to ask; I'm sure they would be happy to answer your questions. Rick rwilliam@uncle-bens.rice.edu ------------ From: kautz@allegra.tempo.nj.att.com (Henry Kautz) I have a Deskwriter and think it's great. Excellent quality, quiet, good paper handling. Cost $828. I haven't tried dunking my papers in water so I don't know about smudging. Just normal handling doesn't smudge them. I like it better for personal use than a laser printer (no fan, no warm-up wait, no mess with toner cartridges). I don't have any experience with the LaserJet IIP.