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From: waters@ORACLE.DEC (Greg Waters, 225-4986, HLO2-1/J12)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.laser-printers
Subject: 2700s, LN01s, etc.
Message-ID: <8601201538.AA02319@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 09:52:05 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.8601201538.AA02319
Posted: Mon Jan 20 09:52:05 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jan-86 02:18:31 EST
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Approved: laser-lovers@washington.arpa

I'm surprised to hear all these complaints about using 2700s and LN01s
as true laser printers.  I also get the impression that few machines are
harder to support under TeX (troff? Scribe?).  However, it's certainly not
impossible to work around the machines' limitations.  I don't know how
much font RAM is in a 2700, but this was a problem only in the very first
LN01s.

Internally, we have dozens of sites using LN01s with TeX, and the results
are excellent.  Most large jobs loose some time to font loading, but this
never takes more than about 5 min.  In any event, the document is done
printing well before an LN03 (or other $3K printer) could have finished.

Unfortunately, a stock LN01 is limited to "mosaic" graphics.  That is, you
can use things like the AMGR (CMGR?) font, and the LaTeX "picture" environ-
ment.  I am not aware of any method to print even small amounts of
arbitrary images on the page.  So, the LN01 certainly isn't a printer for
all applications.  BUT, if you've already got one, you should put it to
use with TeX.

We use two TeX packages with the LN01.  Software documentation writers
obtained support from TeXset Inc., including Compugraphic fonts at 300 dpi
and 1000 dpi.  The rest of us use a homebrew .DVI converter with the
Stanford fonts.  I used to think that this TeX support package, including
all Stanford fonts converted to LN01 format, was available on the VMS
TeX distribution tape.  Also, I thought that one university reverse-
engineered the LN01 and developed another TeX support package.  We can't
openly distribute our DVI-to-LN01 converter, because it was written using
the proprietary LN01 functional spec. from XEROX.  I think it has been
distributed in a limited way, however.  Will someone who knows about the
present contents of the VMS TeX tape please clarify this?

Greg Waters, DEC Hudson, MA
...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-oracle!waters.