Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!uoregon!jqj
From: jqj@uoregon.uoregon.edu (JQ Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs
Subject: Re: Laser printer and photocopier in one?
Message-ID: <2024@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Date: 19 May 88 13:10:51 GMT
References: <17036@cornell.UUCP> <1988May16.062813.17006@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: jqj@drizzle.UUCP (JQ Johnson)
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 17

In article <1988May16.062813.17006@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>People who are knowledgeable about such things tell me that the two-in-one
>deal doesn't work very well.  In principle the functions are similar, but
>in practice the machinery has to be tuned for one or the other to give good
>results.  The only ones I've heard of are a couple of expensive turkeys
>from Xerox.
That Xerox printer (the 4045) does in fact work surprisingly well.  And
it isn't all THAT expensive; indeed, it is the basis for the least
expensive Interpress printer (remember Interpress?  the thing
Postscript replaced?  some people still need it for backwards
compatibility.) available.  More expensive, granted, than buying both
an HP Laserjet II and a cheap copier and putting them on the same
table!

I think I have to disagree with Henry and argue that the two functions
are not in fact necessarily incompatible--that the reason we don't see
these beasts is lack of market rather than technical.