Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request From: uunet.UU.NET!step!number1!perl@cs.utexas.edu (Robert Perlberg) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: Laser Printer for a Small Network of Suns? Keywords: Software Message-ID: <3948@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 9 Jun 89 19:03:16 GMT Sender: usenet@rice.edu Organization: Sun-Spots Lines: 54 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 40, message 2 of 14 In article <8905151454.AA01264@Jester.CC.MsState.Edu>, peters@cc.msstate.edu (Frank W. Peters) writes: >We are in the very first stages of purchasing a laser printer to serve a >small network of suns (3/160 serving 7 3/50s three of which would be using >the printer on a regular basis). I'd like to hear people's opinions of >the issues involved and evaluations of various printers. We'd also like >to hear what software exists to help support such devices (I've heard >mention of a package called transcript?). We have an Apple LaserWriter, an Imagen 24/300, and an HP LaserJet 2686A. The Imagen is a very old model. They admit to having a lot of problems with it and claim that the new ones are much better, but I can't vouch for that. The Imagen uses a language called Impress for which we have software supplied by Imagen which includes everything you need to use the printer on a Sun, including the printcap entry. They have newer printers which also understand postscript. We don't really know how to use Impress and don't have any software that lets us do anything sophisticated with it. We can just print ASCII files in portrait, landscape, or landscape with two columns. The only reason we use this printer is because it is faster than any of the desk top printers (the Imagen stands on the floor). The LaserWriter was purchased from Sun as a "Sun LaserWriter", but it's really an Apple with a Sun logo pasted on. The LaserWriter speaks postscript and we got the transcript package for it from Sun. Transcript includes everything you need to use the LaserWriter, or any other postscript printer (or at least, that's what I would assume to be the case; I haven't yet tried to use it with another postscript printer), including the printcap entry. It also comes with a set of front end programs for converting various types of files (ASCII, Sun rasterfiles, troff, etc.) into postscript, with various options (different fonts, sizes, orientations, title blocks, image scaling, etc.). Sun does not support the HP LaserJet, but I was able to write all of the software we needed for it myself. And Sun was very helpful even though they don't officially support it. I asked Sun a question about getting the handshaking to work and they sent me a printcap entry and rasterfile filter that were submitted by another user. The only advantage of the HP is that it's cheap. Its major disadvantages are that it can't print in any combination of font, size, and orientation (only those that are supported by your font cartridge), it has limited memory, so it can't print high resolution rasterfiles, it has no graphics capabilities other than bitmap printing, it doesn't run postscript which makes it impossible to use all of the neat postscript stuff that gets posted to the net all the time. and it's next to impossible to mix graphics and text. The HP series II has more memory, but I don't know whether that makes much of a difference since I haven't yet tried to use a series II with the Sun. The LaserWriter has none of these problems. Robert Perlberg Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., New York phri!{dasys1 | philabs | mancol}!step!perl -- "I am not a language ... I am a free man!"