Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!ames!uhccux!uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu!ralph From: ralph@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu (Ralph Becker-Szendy) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: problems with talaris laser printer? Summary: Talaris Slow Unreliable Message-ID: <11287@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> Date: 3 Feb 91 23:32:35 GMT References: Sender: news@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu Distribution: comp Organization: U of Hawaii High-Energy Physics Lines: 40 In article davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (John E. Davis) writes: > Are there any well known problems with a Talaris laserprinter's emulation >of postscript? I am sorry but I do not have the particular model but I assume >it is the top of the line. We have it connected to our VAX/VMS 8650 as our >default system laser printer. Some of our postscript programs which run fine >on an apple laserwriter crash the talaris from time to time. And replies: >Not only that, it is extremly slow too. At least 10 times >slower than a Aplle LW. Remember that Talaris is sort of >production type printer and is suppose to print very fast. > I would say that it effectively does not work. Agree. We have a Talaris 1590 with the Talaris PSI cartridge (their PostScript interpreter). It is ridiculously slow. TeX output is a few minutes per page. Even simple graphics (just lines, only a handful macros defined) takes half an hour per page (with say several hundred line segments a page). Also the postscript interpreter is very unreliable. When I set up DVIPS to use more than 200000 bytes os memory (the printer says it has a megabyte) the page will not print, it gets a "Requirements for this page exceeded memory capacity". Graphics with several thousand line segments per page does the same. When downloading the standard Adobe ERROR.PS (to print errors instead of showing them on the front panel), many errors will not print, instead they reboot the printer. If the host is still sending data while that happens, the printer will come up in its default mode (which is EXCL, not postscript in our case) and start dumping page-after-page of postscript source. Lastly the print quality is very poor, every large black area gets washed out (large as in 12pt boldface font). After repeated complaints Talaris claims that this is a non-fixable peculiarity of the 15ppm Ricoh engine they use. At this point I have completely given up on the Talaris 1590 as a postscript printer, and use either a Apple LW or the DEC LPS40 (in the computer center). -- Ralph Becker-Szendy UHHEPG=24742::RALPH (HEPNet,SPAN) University of Hawaii RALPH@UHHEPG.PHYS.HAWAII.EDU High Energy Physics Group RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET Watanabe Hall #203, 2505 Correa Road, Honolulu, HI 96822 (808)956-2931