mec@cbnewsj.att.com (michael.e.connick) (05/29/90)
In article <1990May22.221510.25732@csuchico.edu> lorner@csuchico.edu (Lance Orner) writes: > [Stuff about using an HP Deskjet and the possibility of getting 300 > dpi output from it deleted] > > I thought that Adobe Type Manager might do the trick, but I read somewhere > that it would not do this sort of thing for one reason or another. Anybody > care to comment on this? ATM works GREAT with the DeskJet and the MacPrint driver. Get them both and you should be very happy with your DeskJet. The MacPrint driver is FAR superior to the PD DeskJet driver. We get outstanding 300 dpi text and graphics (PICT) output from our DeskJet and are very happy with it. ----------------------------------------------------- Michael Connick mec@mtfmi.ATT.COM 201-957-3057 AT&T Bell Labs MT 3F-113 (Dept. 79151)
s29749s@saha.hut.fi (Olli Johannes Arnberg) (05/30/90)
In article <1990May22.221510.25732@csuchico.edu> lorner@csuchico.edu (Lance Orner) writes: >I've also been using the printer driver that I've seen on the archives around >the Internet, and it has been working great as an Imagewriter-like >printer, but I've been tinkering with the 300 dpi of the printer, and >haven't had much luck. > > The driver uses larger (32+ point) fonts and scales them down to a smaller >size for better resolution. Unfortunately I don't have that many large font >sizes for it to scale down, so I've been looking for alternatives. Yes. The HPDJ driver needs really large font sizes for adequate 300 dpi output. Here is a table of suitable font sizes: Your text 75dpi 100dpi 150dpi 300dpi 9 pt 9 pt 12 pt 18 pt 36 pt 12 pt 12 pt 16 pt 24 pt 48 pt 14 pt 14 pt 19 pt 28 pt 56 pt 18 pt 18 pt 24 pt 36 pt 72 pt 24 pt 24 pt 32 pt 48 pt 96 pt 36 pt 36 pt 48 pt 72 pt n/a One way to get fonts is to find a LaserWriter IISC. It comes with a good set of large fonts, namely Times, Helvetica, Courier, and Symbol. These fonts are very good at wasting hard disk space, for instance Times96 is about 148kB. > 'Freedom of Press' looks good -- it will convert a Postscript page to 300 >dpi so that it comes out nicely, but that is one more step that I have to >go through for each printed document, something I'd like to avoid if possible. We have no experience with that. It is clear that it won't be especially fast -- when you combine the PostScript interpretation time and the DeskJet graphics printing time at 300 dpi, the result will probably lie somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes per page. Of course this is the one and only way to get nice PostScript effects. >I thought that Adobe Type Manager might do the trick, but I read somewhere >that it would not do this sort of thing for one reason or another. Anybody >care to comment on this? We use ATM daily and it works without any problems with HPDJ. We ordered it from MacConnection and for $59 it was almost a bargain. In addition to providing nice-looking large point sizes and true italics&bolds on screen, it is capable of generating bitmaps for the HPDJ at point sizes of at least 2000 (!) points. This means that you can use all the point sizes your applications allow and have them printed beautifully using HPDJ. Although Adobe clearly has two unpleasant goals while they make the ATM available, it is very recommendable. (The goals? Well, to establish PostScript Type 1 (encrypted) fonts as _the_ font standard in the Macintosh environment before Apple manages to publish its Royal outline fonts and to increase the sales of Adobe's fonts (which are really expensive!). Luckily many other companies offer Type 1 fonts (which ATM requires) at lower prices -- this is because Adobe recently went public with their Type 1 specification.) >Or will System 7 solve my problems? I hear that it will have more support >for non-postscript printers, but other than that, I don't know what it >can do. It depends. System 7 is expected to include a totally revised printing architecture which will break all the existing drivers, including HPDJ. On the other hand, this new architecture should be cleanly designed (unlike the current horrendous mess). Apple has even promised to provide "developer kits" that will allow printer drivers to be written for third-party printers with relative ease. There is only one minor drawback: the price of this kit is yet unannounced (=we won't be able to buy it). Of course Hewlett-Packard can afford this kit. They will surely buy it to revise their newer DeskWriter driver. Because their marketing department will quickly calculate that they won't be able to set the price for a Deskjet driver so high that it will cover the price difference between a Deskjet and a DeskWriter, HP won't necessarily bother to do anything for Deskjet. Perhaps an independent printer driver vendor will make a version for the Deskjet. >What have people done to get good resolution out of their non-Postscript >printers? I've been doing a lot of reading, but haven't gotten any solid >answers yet. I'd love to hear from some people. > ----Lance M. Orner So, we use our HPDJ driver with ATM and we are quite happy with it. Sometimes we hope that HP would have used something more powerful than a Z80 as the CPU of this magnificent printer. Regards, Ari Mujunen (s29851c@taltta.hut.fi), Olli Arnberg (s29749s@saha.hut.fi)
mec@cbnewsj.att.com (michael.e.connick) (05/30/90)
In article <S29749S.90May29230118@saha.hut.fi> s29749s@saha.hut.fi (Olli Johannes Arnberg) writes: > System 7 is expected to include a totally revised > printing architecture which will break all the existing drivers, > including HPDJ. > > Perhaps an independent printer driver vendor will make a version for > the Deskjet. Insight, the MacPrint driver people, are committed to modifying MacPrint to be compatible with System 7.0. BTW, I'd STRONGLY recommend you look into replacing your copy of HPDJ with MacPrint. It's far superior and quite reasonably priced. I'd never go back to using HPDJ after having used MacPrint. ----------------------------------------------------- Michael Connick mec@mtfmi.ATT.COM 201-957-3057 AT&T Bell Labs MT 3F-113 (Dept. 79151)
davidl@leonardo.intel.com (David D. Levine) (05/31/90)
In article <S29749S.90May29230118@saha.hut.fi>, s29749s@saha.hut.fi (Olli Johannes Arnberg) writes: > ... System 7 is expected to include a totally revised > printing architecture ... Sorry, but I believe the New Print Architecture is one of the features that Apple has dropped in order to get System 7 out the door this year. Too bad. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) - David D. Levine, Intel IMSO Tech Pubs davidl@leonardo.intel.com "Think of it as evolution in action."
neff@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Dave Neff) (06/02/90)
>So, we use our HPDJ driver with ATM and we are quite happy with it. >Sometimes we hope that HP would have used something more powerful than >a Z80 as the CPU of this magnificent printer. Having co-written the DeskJet Epson emulation cartridge firmware, written some of the DeskJet+ printer firmware and much of the DeskWriter AppleTalk firmware I am acutely aware of the limits of the Z80 (in a DeskJet) and the Z180 (in the DeskJet+ and DeskWriter). However, an 8 megahertz Z180 is totally adequate for a graphics only printer like the DeskWriter and does fine for a bitmap font and graphics printer like the DeskJet+. The DeskWriter is hardly ever limited by the Z180, rather it is limited by the Mac imaging or the physical speed that the mechanism can move paper and move the print head over the paper. If you are using the HPDJ driver runing a DeskJet+ at 19.2 K baud you are limitted by the speed of the IO port (although the classic DeskJet could still be faster in this case, explained below). Not even a 25 megahertz 68000 would make the DeskJet+ any faster in this case. Over the parallel port, the DeskJet+ can process graphics data as fast as most hosts can send it and can keep the printer "mechanism limitted". At 19.2 K baud the DeskJet+ is IO limited. I would much rather write firmware for the 68000, but really the performance limitations of the DeskJet+ and DeskWriter printer are not generally due to the fact that they contain a Z180. Now if we are talking about the classic DeskJet, it only has a 4 megahertz Z80 and it was optimized for text not graphics. I can make a DeskJet classic print graphics 3 times faster if I use the input buffer for graphics rather than buffering up data and make a couple other modificatoins to the way incoming data is handled (or if I had a bit more RAM). In other words, even for the DeskJet classic the Z80 isn't really the problem (although doubling the clock speed would help), its graphics performance is partly limited by insufficient RAM and a particular firmware architecture emphasizing text over graphics. The DeskJet+ modified the architecture to significantly improve graphics performance and the Z180 was quite adequate for the task. The DeskWriter architecture was further tuned to be a graphics only printer and the Z180 is fine for this task as well. I'm glad you think its a "magnificant printer". Dave Neff neff@hpvcfs1.HP.COM
mwilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins) (06/04/90)
In article <S29749S.90May29230118@saha.hut.fi> s29749s@saha.hut.fi (Olli Johannes Arnberg) writes: > System 7 is expected to include a totally revised > printing architecture which will break all the existing drivers, > including HPDJ. Sorry, the new print architecture has been made a longer-term project than System 7 and won't be included. Unfortunately too many things would break and there are certain other problems. -- Mark Wilkins -- "According to our contract, at precisely midnight of the night of her greatest triumph, the party of the first part, (that's you), agrees to render up her soul, now and forevermore, to the party of the second part. (That's me). Shall we go?"