Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!thetone!swilson
From: swilson%thetone@Sun.COM (Scott Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: How did they make the printer so cheap?
Message-ID: <73489@sun.uucp>
Date: 19 Oct 88 00:20:48 GMT
References: <0XKoeky00UgXM3T24=@andrew.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: swilson@sun.UUCP (Scott Wilson)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 18

>Since the computer is running Display Postscript, it builds the image and
>then bit-blasts it out the printer port to the printer.  In either 400DPI
>or 300 DPI (draft-- HAH!) mode.

I don't know squat about printers, so I'm confused about something.  If
the computer is going to build the image then for an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet
at 400 dpi wouldn't you need 8.5x400x11x400 bits of memory in which
the image is built?  This works out to be roughly 1.8 meg of memory
(assuming I didn't screw up somewhere).  Does this mean that to
compose a page for the printer the NeXT machine has to briefly use
this much of its memory?  What kind of transfer rates are expected
out the printer port?


--
Scott Wilson		arpa: swilson@sun.com
Sun Microsystems	uucp: ...!sun!swilson
Mt. View, CA