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From: omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Has anyone seen the HP Laserjet III AppleTalk Option?
Summary: HP LJ III + PScript + ATalk is slow, but great quality printout
Message-ID: <4987@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 90 20:42:45 GMT
References: <550@nrcvax.NRC.COM> <982@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley)
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 39

>In article <550@nrcvax.NRC.COM> neg@NRC.COM (Neal Goldsmith) writes:
>> I've been waiting for almost three months to get the AppleTalk kit from HP.
>> I had enough trouble getting the Postscript Cart ...
>> 
>> HP has been advertising this option for over three months! Does anyone 
>> know what is going on?

A local HP salesman brought a PostScript cartridge and AppleTalk kit over
to a department on campus here for a test.  The LJ III was hooked up via
LocaTalk to a Mac IIcx running PageMaker 3.02.

We printed several PageMaker files, each varying in complexity, on both
the LaserJet and an Apple LaserWriter IINT.  Our most complex document had
text wrapped around graphics, PICTs, and encapsulated PostScript stuff.

The LaserJet took almost twice as long (almost 9 minutes) to print that
file (vs. the IINT's almost 5 minutes), and some of the graphical elements
were missing on the printout.  But under a magnifying glass and even to
the naked eye the LaserJet printout had far better resolution.  (The IINT
didn't miss printing anything, but large fonts weren't as sharp.)

The weak link in our test, which could be the reason it missed printing
some of the elements of our file, is that PageMaker 3.02 doesn't have an
APD file for the LaserJet III.  (I assume that PageMaker 4.0 will have
one.)  A dialog box showed up during printing that said it would print
the file, but using the LaserWriter IINT APD.

Since the department testing the printer mainly uses PageMaker, they
elected to buy a LaserWriter IINT now and look at the HP again a few months
from now ... when more complete printer drivers are available.

The HP LJ III, with all necessary options, would have been about $600
cheaper than the Apple IINT.

-John
---
John O'Malley               / Macintosh  / Purdue University / (317)
omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu / Specialist / Computing Center  / 494-1787
(New & improved login name!  Formerly ajq@mace.cc.purdue.edu)