Newsgroups: comp.text
Path: utzoo!utgpu!tmsoft!mason
From: mason@tmsoft.uucp (Dave Mason)
Subject: Genicom (Centronics) Laser Printer
Message-ID: <1989Jan24.005723.5667@tmsoft.uucp>
Followup-To: comp.text
Reply-To: mason@tmsoft.UUCP (Dave Mason)
Organization: TM Software Associates, Toronto
References: <18097@adm.BRL.MIL>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 89 00:57:23 GMT

In article <18097@adm.BRL.MIL> abc@adm.BRL.MIL (Brint Cooper) writes:
>
>"Comb," a direct marketing, mail-order house is advertising a $2495
>"Genicom" laser printer made by Centronics for $799.
This is a very good price!  But I don't think that I would buy a laser
printer from a mail order house.  But my opinion may be biased (I am a
dealer in Toronto and I'm offering them at well below suggested
clearance list, but that's well below MY COST with 1.5MB!)

>  The announcement
>gives little infomation beyond:
>
>		IBM and Epson compatible
>		300 dots per inch
>		8 pages per minute
>		512K RAM with additional 1.5MB available
>		parallel interface
>		optional plug in font modules available

I wonder how much the 1MB expansion is?  That MAY be the catch.  My
price includes 1.5MB (total, which is the max).  There are only 3
resident fonts: Courier in portrait & landscape; LinePrinter in portrait.
It is supposed to accept Laserjet+ font cards, but I haven't tried as
I'm using down-loaded fonts (see below), for which you'll almost
certainly want more memory.

>Can anyone provide additional information?
I have one here.  For background: Centronics was bought by Genicom.
This printer was in the Centronics product line.  They are not making
any more, but have promised support for 5 years.  When these are all
sold, they will not have a laser printer for about 6 months (I am told)
after which they will reenter the market with a Postscript Clone at
about $4000-7000 (the price was far more than I was interested in, so I
didn't pay much attention).

>  What language does it use?
It's MOSTLY HP Laserjet Plus compatible.  There are 2 differences.
The important one is that with down-loaded fonts, the font must be
completely down-loaded before use.  With a Laserjet Plus, you can
down-load a few characters in a font, and then add more to it when
necessary.  (Useful for a large font where you only need a few
characters.)  The dvijep filter uses the incremental download feature
and needs minor modification.  The other one was obscure & I forgot it
as not relevant.  The Genicom people DID NOT KNOW about the
incremental down-load incompatibility!

>Does it employ a compatible engine?
Canon

>Is it worth the money?
I like it, and my answer about whether you should buy from them may be
tinged with self-interest.  Try a local dealer, you may get almost as
good a price, and get some support as well.  I'm selling them for about
2/3 what a HP Laserjet+ goes for, and I think they're a good value at
that price.
	../Dave