Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!jwishnie
From: jwishnie@reed.UUCP (Jeff Wishnie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT and non-laser printer (again)
Message-ID: <15537@reed.UUCP>
Date: 3 Oct 90 23:54:33 GMT
References: <13115@cs.utexas.edu>
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 31
In-reply-to: tph@cs.utexas.edu's message of 3 Oct 90 00:41:31 GMT

I believe System 2.0 has the capability to generate bitmaps at ARBITRARY
dpi settings. This would make writing a print driver simple. Just ask the
window server for the proper dpi representation and tell the printer to
print it.

In the mean time, Robert Lin has written a driver called iwscript which
I think is shareware. It is available at the nova.cc.purdue.edu anonymous
ftp site. It prints at 72dpi to ImageWriter II's.

All that aside, I think that most students who buy dot-matrix printers are
wasting there money (anywhere from $300 for an ImageWriter II to around $800
for an LQ) when most schools have labs with all kinds of printers they can
use. Now that schools are setting up more labs of NeXTs, students should have
better access to high-quality printing facilities. If a school doesn't have 
a NeXT lab non-techies can put their files on a floppy and print out from an
IBM or an Apple.

One last printer note, someone posted incorrectly that a LaserWriter IISC could
be hooked up to a NeXT. Any laserprinter with a builtin PostScript interpretor
can be hooked up easily to a NeXT (This printers include LaserWriters, Pluses,
IINTs, IINTXs, HP's with postscript cards etc..) but the IISC does NOT
interpret PostScript. It is driven by the Mac and uses QuickDraw as its
imaging model.

As a result, anyone who has hooked a IISC to a NeXT has had to do some major
hacking.

Jeff Wishnie

stdDisclaimer: My opinions are my own and have from time to time been proven
	       incorrect.