wbl@lightning.Berkeley.EDU (Wen-Po Bobby Lee) (11/16/90)
I know this sounds like a silly question, but what in the world is postscript and why is it so DAMN expensive!@?#* I've been looking into laser printers and it sounds like Postscript is some magical thing. By the way, my previous question concerning "HELP-No sound..." was answered. Thanks to **** in Hawaii. Hang loose! Please E-mail. --Bobby
kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) (11/17/90)
Postsciript is a trademarked page description language created by Adobe.
It's a way to describe how a page looks in ascii text (If you ever examine
PS code to a printer, it's just plain text, which is a nice feature over
phone lines).
Why is it so expensive? I'm not quite sure if its still true but Adobe
used to require people to license their PDL (page descrip. lang.) for any
printers that contained them or any software package that outputed PS code.
Recently the price has been coming down.
As to what kind of printer you should get, I would probably say the best
bet would be an HP Laserjet II (not a IIP) with at least an extra MB board
if not 2 or 4MB board for the printer with Adobe's PS cartridge for the II.
You get 300 dpi output with a printer engine that does 8 ppm. Or you can
go with a IIP with HP's PS cartridge and 2MB board for it to get the same
results except the printer engine is only capable of 4 ppm.
If you do go with an HP printer, for a cartridge PS solution, I would stick
with Adobe's or HP's PS cartridge, only because its the only one on the
market that does true PS. The pacific page cartridge uses a postscript
emulation called phoenix page, which is nice in some ways (its capable
of switching between PS and PCL modes) but worse in others (its PS output
can look slightly screwed up).
Bob
--
Bob Kusumoto | Find the electric messiah!
Internet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu | The AC/DC God!
Bitnet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.bitnet | - My Life with the Thrill Kill
UUCP: ...!{oddjob,gargoyle}!chsun1!kusumoto | Kult, "Kooler than Jesus"silver@xrtll.uucp (Hi Ho Silver) (11/19/90)
In article <kusumoto.658796601@chsun1> kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) writes:
$Why is it so expensive? I'm not quite sure if its still true but Adobe
$used to require people to license their PDL (page descrip. lang.) for any
$printers that contained them or any software package that outputed PS code.
$Recently the price has been coming down.
The reason why it was so expensive was that originally, there were no
PostScript clones. You want PS? You licence it from Adobe. When they
noticed that other people had written clones and were eating into their
market share, they lowered the price.
$As to what kind of printer you should get, I would probably say the best
$bet would be an HP Laserjet II (not a IIP) with at least an extra MB board
$if not 2 or 4MB board for the printer with Adobe's PS cartridge for the II.
$You get 300 dpi output with a printer engine that does 8 ppm. Or you can
Me, I'd recommend the LJ III due to its resolution enhancement tech-
nology. I believe there's a true PS cartridge available for it from HP.
If you haven't seen the output of an LJ III, it really isn't marketing
hype - it looks far better than any other 300 dpi laser.
--
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