Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr
From: covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Ultrascript experience
Summary: Come on! Let's duke it out!
Message-ID: <473fe9f1.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Date: 5 Dec 89 20:16:42 GMT
References: <8912020804.AA27404@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <473a552d.14a1f@force.UUCP> <2389@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>
Organization: gte
Lines: 106

In article <2389@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>, gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
> In article <473a552d.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes:
> 
> >All in all, the extra bucks that I am paying for the Panasonic laser printer
> >are well worth it to me. And I am getting a FASTER printer (11 ppm vs 8ppm of
> >the SLM804).
> 
> You know, Richard, you don't listen.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let's just get nasty here!! :-)


OK Greg, in one of my last messages I *SAID* that for strictly ST work the
SLM804 is faster than any other printer. That is because of the DMA port of
course. I will give you that. OK? No more arguments?

> 
> I posted an article explaining WHY the SLM804 is sometimes faster than
> other laser printers, even with faster print engines, in certain
> situations.  Several people posted articles saying, yes, in real life,
> they have seen this.
> 
> I can assure you that, running Ultrascript, the SLM804 will beat the pants
> of your Panasonic laser printer printing, for example, full page bitmaps.
> 
> Why don't you benchmark it in various situations before you shoot your
> mouth off? Why can't you include a little disclaimer, "Well, there are
Nasty temper you have there Greg! :-)

> situations where the SLM804 is a lot faster than the Panasonic." Yes,
> the Panasonic may be the best printer for you, but not necessarily for
> everyone else. They might be very surprised to plug it in and find
> that it doesn't print 11 pages per minute, every minute.
> 
> Your attitude is entirely non-professional. I hope you grow out of
> your childish Atari-bashing phase.
Real nasty mouth there!! :-)

> Greg Lindahl


Greg, I have said before that the MAJOR reason that I sold my SLM804 and bought
a Panasonic KX-P4450 is that I wanted a laser printer that I could use with
Spectre and pc dittoII at a full 300 dpi. The SLM804 can not print at 300 dpi
with the Spectre now(disclaimer: Without UltraScript that it is), and can't even 
be used at at with pc ditto.

Greg, I bought my Panasonic because, given that I wanted a laser printer that
emaulates a Laser Jet, the Panasonic KX-P4450 is the fastest laser printer
for under $2,000.00. It is faster than the Packard-Bell (which sells for
about $1200 with 1 meg, a real bargain), the HP Laser Jet IIP (which sells
for about $995 with 1/2 meg), the HP Laser Jet II (which sells for about $1700
with 1/2 meg) or the Epson or the Brother or the Canon. OK?

I don't need to benchmark the SLM804 against these other laser printers, because
they ALL will be slower than the SLM804 for ST work. I agree with that. But,
the Panasonic KX-P4450 will be faster than the HP Laser Jet IIp,II, the Brother,
the Canon, the Packard-Bell, or any other laser printer for under $2,000. I
am *NOT* bashing Atari for the SLM804. It is a wonderful, though limited,
printer. It just doesn't do what I wanted a laser printer to do. So, I am
better off selling it than griping about its defiences. Agreed?

A friend of mine, Ralph Mariano, sells the Panasonic KX-P4450 printer and
has used one with his Mega ST4 for 6 months. Ralph finally got an Atari SLM804
and it does run faster than the KX-P4450 for ST work.  So, I agree with that.
But, alot of people are buying Spectres and pc dittos and pc dittoIIs and
pc speed. And those folks will find the SLM804 lacking. I had my SLM804
for 20 months and never could fully utilize it under Spectre or pc ditto.
I don't expect Atari to address this anytime soon. 

Did you know that *ALL* SLM804 emulators run in RAM that is overwritten by
the MAC OS when running Spectre?? And by MSDOS when running pc ditto. So, even
if Atari came out with a working Epson emulator for the SLM, it wouldn't run
under Spectre or pc ditto without help from Dave Small or Bill Teal. And Atari
has never even spoken about a Laser Jet emulator for the SLM. I wonder why?
So, in order for me to use the SLM804 it would have needed an Epson emulator,
and a Laser Jet emulator, but they would have had to be run in meory so that
MAC and MSDOS could use them. Which is *NOT* very likely.

I refuse to defend my position anymore. I am happy with my choice to sell the
SLM804. I will NOT say bad things about it in the future. I will learn to live
with my SLOW ( :-)) Panasonic KX-P4450 laser printer.

You, of course, must decide how you want to use a laser printer. If it is for
strictly ST work than by all means buy the SLM804. But if you want to use it
for Mac or MSDOS work, than consider another printer. OK?

Finally, did you know that there are PostScript clones out for both Mac and
MSDOS. I was just at Egghead Software+ and saw an IBM PS clone from an outfit
called LaserGo. It has PS plus 13 fonts. Also, there is Adobe Type Manager
for the Mac, with the same PS clone and 13 fonts. Hey, guess what? Never
supports the Atari laser printer. But both support the Panasonic KX-P4450.
So, I don't have to use UltraScript to get PS for my Panasonic when using
Mac or MSDOS programs. But the SLM804 eliminated this option from either
MAC OR MSDOS.

So, unless Atari releases a laser printer with a cpu, internal memory,
and builtin printer emulators, I am not interested in Atari laser printers.
And than the Atari lp had better be cheaper than a HP or a Panasonic to 
compete.

-- 
 Richard E. Covert (covertr@gtephx) 
  (602) - 581-4652 
|  AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ   |
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