Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!columbia!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-tis!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!UMASS.BITNET!manly From: manly@UMASS.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Laser printer information request Message-ID: <8706120255.AA08855@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Mon, 8-Jun-87 12:38:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8706120255.AA08855 Posted: Mon Jun 8 12:38:00 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jun-87 13:01:54 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: world Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 99 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello everyone. I am submitting this both to LASER-LOVERS and INFO-VAX, so my apologies to those who get it twice. I have just spent the last week reviewing all the LASER-LOVERS entries since March 1986, and have been impressed with the amount and usefulness of the information which has been contributed. As I might have expected, however, I have not yet located precisely the information I am looking for, so I am posting the following request for information. The facts -- we need a printer to do the following: A) Print 10-15K pages per month usually B) Not die if pushed to 30K for one month a year (final exams) C) print standard ascii text files D) either be supported by WordPerfect, or have a simple enough printing language (escape chars for underlining and subscripts and so on) that a printer definition could be written. F) have support for printing TeX DVI output files G) have support for determining page counts, either through modified print symbionts or some other mechanism. Amherst College has been running two LN03+'s for over a year now. We have been doing an average of 10,000 pages per month between them, although at finals time (when students are printing their theses) that has gotten as high as 60,000 pages printed in one month. The LN03's really are not designed to handle this load continuously, and so we are planning to purchase additional laser printing hardware. We will probably purchase two of whatever printer we finally decide upon. Basically whatever printers we buy should be able to print 10 to 15 thousand pages a month and not explode if they are pushed to twice that for a few weeks a couple of times a year. If they need to be serviced or cleaned following such abuse, fine -- but they MUST NOT be prone to failure during such high volume work. The language the printers use is not tremendously important, so long as it works and does all things we require, and our requirements are fairly modest, since it will be primarily a word processing support machine. The printers must be able to print standard ascii text files, must either be supported by Wordperfect, or use an escape sequence language (not a page description language like Postscript) so we can write our own Wordperfect printer definition. The printer must have support for TeX DVI files. A preprocessor would be fine, although a special symbiont (such as the Talaris font manager) would be better. Whichever method is used, it MUST be able to read PK files directly (no conversion to PXL, GF, or device specific font formats.) We have far to many fonts to have to duplicate the information in a special form. But here is the BIG ITEM. PAGE COUNTING. There MUST be a way to track the page counts of jobs printed without parsing the entire output stream. I simply cannot believe that we are the only installation that charges for pages printed, so someone else must have dealt with this problem before. We have so far investigated only the QMS 1500, Talaris 1500, and HP 2000 machines, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. We are particularly interested in the 1500 model of each, which uses the new, upgraded Ricoh engine. Does anyone have any experience with these units? In general, I will listen to whatever anyone has to say, but I am much more interested in listening to people who are actually using the equipment they want to talk about. As usual, I will post a summary of responses to the net. Remember, though, we need higher volume machines, not variations on the LN03 or the Apple Laserwriter. Actually, while I'm on the subject of Laserwriters and Postscript, I must say in advance that, after reading LASER-LOVERS, I am somewhat skeptical of Postscript in an environment like ours. Many of the messages have expressed difficulty with printing simple ascii text documents and Wordperfect output, not to mention the attendant accounting difficulties. Several of the notes also suggested that at this point, TeX DVI output on postscript machines is not all it could be either. So Postscript seems to lose across the board on this one, although if someone would care to refute (drawing on experience of course) these objections, I'd love to hear them. As an addendum, I should point out that the LN03's have proven to be very robust despite the abuse they have taken running unattended in a sometimes hostile student environment. Only when we pushed them to nearly ten times their recommended duty cycle did they start to fail. And even then, most of the problems were the result of inexperienced (and harried) student handling and not due to intrinsic mechanical limitations. The engines, as far as I have been able to ascertain, DO NOT overhead. Ever. One of them withstood 20,000 pages printed out in one weekend with no mechanical problems of any kind. But they simply are TOO SMALL for the kind of demands which will be placed on them next year. Thank you all for your attention. - jwm John W. Manly Telephone: (413)-542-2526 System Manager BITNET: JWMANLY@AMHERST PO BOX 1801 Amherst College ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~