Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!think!husc6!linus!philabs!sbcs!bnl!drs From: drs@bnl.ARPA (David R. Stampf) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Laser Printers and the ST Message-ID: <324@bnl.ARPA> Date: 3 Feb 88 14:13:50 GMT References: <8802021704.AA24124@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: drs@bnl.UUCP (David R. Stampf) Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, N.Y. Lines: 81 In article <8802021704.AA24124@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> GASPARD@HROEUR5.BITNET writes: >>First - does it make a great deal of sense to by the laser engine for >>$2K when right next to it is an HP going for $1.7K, which has .5 Meg of >>memory, and the ability to upgrade it to almost anything. (Postscript >>included). Is the quality of the Atari Laser so great as to outweigh >>all other factors? >> >>Second - consider the following two scenarios. I buy a mono-mega4 and >>an atari laser printer for $4.5K, and lets say Word Perfect, a page >>publishing program. >> >>-or- >>I buy a mono-ST for .9K and a AST Turbo Laser for $3K -> for a total of >>$3.9K. >>I have the same software. > > >I'm using the Atari laser for about two months now and I find it >wonderfull. Just compare its 'black' with most other lasers. > I did, and I wasn't terribly impressed - but then it could have been a lot of other factors including that the salesman didn't show it off to its best advantage. >But let me ask you same questions: > >Do you have a 'GDOS'-printerdriver for the AST-turbo-laser? Who cares - I haven't seen GDOS out of atari yet and I won't spend $2000 to get it. >Can you make a screendump to the AST-laser? I've taken a total of 2 screen dumps - mostly to see if the printer was hooked up. That isn't what I want a laser printer for. >The programs that you have or you'll have in the future, are they >supporting the AST-laser? Since the AST runs postscript, I would imagine that the number of programs that support it far outnumber those that support the Atari Laser. In addition, there are a lot of folks out there who know postscript. It simply blows away all other page description languages (in my opinion!) >Do you have a 'epson'-emulator for the AST-laser? (a German-company is >selling one for the Atari-laser) Maybe I'm missing the point, but why buy a printer that costs an order of magnitude more than the epson so I can emulate the epson? The epson is a simple printer and anyone who can write a program around a finite state machine can write an emulator for it. >I think, if you are sure you don't sell your ST in the near future, you >will be better of with the Atari laser. >I'm very sure some smart company will make a RS232- or centronics- >interface for the Atari-laser. Well don't hold your breath, but I would not care to add $200 to an already overpriced printer to make it useful to other machines - besides, since the Atari laser has NO memory, the interface would have to run at a speed matching the construction of the image - I don't know that the serial line can do it, and even the Centronics may be too slow. (A full graphics page takes about 2 minutes to download at 9600 baud - that's why you want the printer to have some smarts and build the image itself.) >I'm sure some smart guy will write a fonteditor for the Atari-laser. > >I agree, it's sometimes a wast of time waiting to get the ST back when >the laser is printing. > And paying double for the privilege is a real insult. > >Bert Rozenberg >Dutch ST-foundation. Had this printer had a street price of < $1K, it would be a deal, but at double that ... Sorry. < dave.