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From: hudgens@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Hudgens)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: new NeXTs as PostScript engines?
Message-ID: <859@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 1 Oct 90 04:04:23 GMT
References: <1990Sep28.213733.26340@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 57

In article <1990Sep28.213733.26340@Neon.Stanford.EDU> 
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu writes:
>I posted the following to comp.sys.next:
>>The next thing I did was to do a slightly unconventional comparison with the
>>Mac price list. Imagine you are in the market for a laser printer with a fast
>>PostScript engine, e.g., a LaserWriter IINTX. Stanford price: $3820. Does
>>NeXT offer an alternative? Their printer is 400dpi (which I presume is an
>>advantage), but needs a NeXT workstation to drive it. Stanford price for a
>>NeXT printer: $1229. Total for printer plus minimum NeXT: $4382. Now, this
>>is $562 more than the Apple printer, but the LaserWriter doesn't have a
>>nice screen to preview your PostScript, or a 105M hard disk. Also, it's
>>processor isn't as fast as the NeXT's and it doesn't include a unix
>>workstation in the price, or very much bundled software...
>
>This wasn't entirely meant to be a serious suggestion, but a NeXT engineer
>pointed out to me that their combination has some major advantages, like the
>high speed of the 68040, 8M of RAM, and virtual memory (which should allow 
>very complex imaging).
 [...]
>Philip Machanick
>philip@pescadero.stanford.edu

Interestingly enough, I recently got the following blurb in the mail.
It does sound somewhat similar to the NeXT printer....

--------
    The other half of Sun's new open printing solution, SPARCprinter,
    provides twice the speed, much better print resolution and more fonts
    at less than half the cost of the Sun LaserWriter II that it replaces.
    SPARCprinter leverages the powerful SPARCstation CPU to print up to 12
    pages per minute   even on print jobs with complex PostScript graphics
    or multiple fonts.  In contrast, many of today's PostScript laser
    printers commonly produce between two to three pages per minute.

    High quality is achieved with a resolution of 300 or 400 dots per inch
    (software selectable).  SPARCprinter uses a high-bandwith interface,
    which gives it these fast printing speeds.  SPARCprinter is attached
    via an SBus card to a SPARCstation 1, 1+ or IPC.  The card contains a
    SPARCprinter port and a Centronics parallel port.
--------

I think list on this is $2700 or so, with the software at $500.  
Discounts could get that down to $2000 or so.  
It's not really comparable to the above prices (for NeXT), 
I know, and not really that good a deal in comparison to a 
NEC890 or the new TI postscript printer.

But has anyone seen one of these?  Any opinions?  





-- 
Disclaimer:  I didn't do it.
Jim Hudgens		Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
hudgens@sun13.scri.fsu.edu