Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!neoucom!wtm
From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: HP Deskjets VS. Deskjet Plus
Summary: pretty compatible for me
Message-ID: <1687@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jul 89 16:07:13 GMT
References: <1765@netcom.UUCP> <1078@unocss.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 51


I personally have owned the origninal desk jet for about a year,
and have had very few compatiblity problems with it.  I've used the
built-in courier fonts and the TMS Roman cartigde with it.  It
seems to be compatible with virtually all the programs that I have
tried that work with the Laserjet+.

Indeed, HP does supply drivers with the printer, and there are
additional drivers available by sending in a card.  The difference
is in the way some programs that generate raster graphics make
their images.  It seems that lotus 1-2-3 version 2.01 sends only
one or two raster lines at a time as it prints.  This results in an
excruciatingly long print time of almost 20 minutes/page.  Once I
switched to the HP driver, it sends 50 lines at a time, which
lowers the time to about 4 minutes per page, which is nearly on par
with the Laserjet+.

I use the microsoft word version 3 .PRD files that came with word
with no problem.  HP does have a .PRD files which rearranges some
of the font definitions.  This is because some the cartidges for
the deskjet contain a different mix of fonts than the laserjet+.
For me, there was no need to switch drivers.

In all cases, the documentation is excellent, and there has been no
hassle in loading the additional drivers.  The only limitation I
can think of is an exceedingly brain-damaged program that does PCL
graphics in an order that would require the deskjet to scroll the
paper backwards.  The deskjet will not scroll backwards, as that
would result in smearing of the ink before it could dry.  In
character mode, there is no problem in scrolling backwards, as the
image of the page is buffered before printing when PCL escape
sequences are present; I suppose there are some rare occasions when
you could get caught with your pants down in text mode, but I
haven't seen any in the last year.

Here at the plant, we've recently started receiving the deskjet
plus printers.  They are really nice.  They use a full Z-80
processor as opposed to the Z-8 CPU in the non-plus version.  There
is also enough memory in the printer that it can do landscape mode
without needing to buy fonts or the optional RAM cartridge.  The
paper handling has also seemingly been sped up on the plus
version.

It is one of the nicest printers you can buy at that price.  By the
way, HP has leaked to the press that it plans to introduce a new
budget laser printer this fall that is well under the $2K list
price.  Street pices could be a lot lower than that.  Maybe it
would be worth waiting a few months to see what materializes in
HP's new printer line-up

Bill