Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!mmm.serc.3m.com!us214777 From: us214777@mmm.serc.3m.com (John C. Schultz) Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers Subject: Re: what laser printer to buy ? Keywords: purchase printer Message-ID: <8911150344.AA03615@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU> Date: 30 Oct 89 00:44:24 GMT References: <8910201448.AA11309@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: 3M - St. Paul, MN 55144-1000 US Lines: 52 Approved: laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu I purchased a LZR 1260 partially based on a demo and partially based on a review that rated the LZR highly for a commercial strength laser printer. I wanted a printer that was reasonably fast and could be expected to work long after a Laserwriter II had given up. My initial goals were high resolution because I like to print images. However since the same laser printer needed to serve as a line printer, I found the print speed of the higher resolution printers unacceptable when printing simple text (a software switchable high-low resolution mode would be nice). BTW, the slow print speed at higher resolution comes from simply having to manipulate more pixels to print the same area of paper - obvious when you think about it. Anyway, I ended up with the LZR 1260 running from a Sun 3/160, SunOS 4.0.3 using a /dev/ttya at 38400 baud. We use a public domain text to PS filter dvi2ps to print LaTeX dvi files, and Frame. The unit is theoretically switchable from HP emulation mode to PS mode but we could only get it to go from HP to PS mode not from PS to HP mode. We leave it in PS mode and use the text to PS filter to have it emulate a lineprinter. (This acutally has advantages because it is easy to scale the font size and do landscape or portrait mode printing.) About the printer itself, I just followed the directions, and it worked in about 20 minutes of setup time. It came pretty disassembled but was easy to put together. A nice feature is an internal bubble level and some supplied shims to make sure it is level. I timed the print speed relative to a Laser writer II for a simple text file and for a .5 MB image file. The LZR at 38400 baud was took about 3 minutes to print the text file vs about 10 seconds longer for the Laserwriter II (Appletalk connected to a VAX 11/780). The suprising thing was that the .5 MB image file (a 512 x 512 x 8 bits/pixel file Postscript's to .5 MB) printed almost twice as fast on the LZR as it did on the Laserwriter II. The only problems that I have seen are that the SUN print spooler seems to slow the printer down somewhat and the paper transport squeaks. The printer does have RS232, Appletalk, and Centronics parallel input if that is of interest. Perhaps the thing I like the best is that you can connect a terminal to a diagnostic port and see the Postscript being executed and/or get errors. You also have a relatively sophisticated menu pad on the printer from which it is easy to select input data port, serial line parameters, etc. You can buy dual paper trays and lots of other things. I think we paid about $7,000. For this price you get at least double the Laserwriter II suggested copies per month. (I forget the exact number). -- John C. Schultz EMAIL: jcschultz@mmm.3m.com 3M Company WRK: +1 (612) 733 4047 3M Center, Building 518-01-1 St. Paul, MN 55144-1000 The opinions expressed above are my own and DO NOT reflect 3M's