Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: laser printers for Amiga?
Message-ID: <11896@gryphon.COM>
Date: 10 Feb 89 23:00:37 GMT
References: <35@mindlink.UUCP> <6005@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 56

In article <6005@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> wolff@cs.purdue.EDU (Robert M. Wolff) writes:
>
>Well, I just spoke to CLtd today, and their Laser-X-Press (casiopia
>project) is going to be adding a postscript 'device'. It INTERPRETS
>a postscript source, turns it into a virtual page, and then may be
>edited, clipped from, etc...then can be sent out to the laser printer
>in 8 seconds!!!
>
>Laser-X-Press is RETAIL $2500...not bad...also, Pagestream will print
>directly to the virtual page in memory, Pro-page, city desk (newest ver),
>and many others will be supporting the virtual page libraries...
>
>Gonna be REALLY nice...

No, this is not NICE, this is horrible. Sounds like the atari printer.
The problems wit this are:

1) For $500 more, you can get a REAL PostScript printer (NEC LC-890)
   with REAL Postscript, not some disfunctional clone or PD PS 
   interpreter somebody grabbed from comp.sources.misc.
   What does REAL PS buy you:

	A) As opposed to the PS clones being foisted
           on the unsuspecting public with wild abandon, REAL
           PS will interpret PS correctly. PS gets 
           complicated enough that the idea of this
           abomination not printing a REAL PS program
           because of some subtle difference in 
           interpretation of a, for example, statusdist.

	B) The cheap PS rasterizers adapted from the ones
           posted to the net just dont support enough 
           featurs to be rmotely useful. Translation:
           even my simple PS programs cause them to fail.

	C) With Adobe PS, you get to use: ta da! Adobe
           fonts. Thats right, there are PostScript
           fonts, that will work on any PS device, but
           Adobe PS fonts will only work on Adobe PS
           printers. Adobe fonts are expensive (none
           of this `aloha fonts for $12' crap, they're
           $85 - $385 per TYPEFACE. And for a reason.
           They work, and they look good even at the
           smaller (<12 pt) point sizes. Thats the hard 
           part, and is Adobe's most valuable secret.

	
2) If I read you right, and they are builing the page in memory
they are tying up memory, CPU, and time doing something, that
for that kind of money, should be done in the printer.

$500 just isnt that much of a savings to put up with these imprefections.

-- 
     ``I've re-written UNIX from, scratch.  God told me to''  - Ed Carp
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