Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!shelby!polya!rokicki From: rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Some Random NeXT Thoughts Keywords: NeXT Speculation Cost Future Marketing Message-ID: <8473@polya.Stanford.EDU> Date: 15 Apr 89 07:29:13 GMT References: <12017@ut-emx.UUCP> <1578@neoucom.UUCP> Sender: Tomas G. Rokicki Reply-To: rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 47 > Re: the Deskjet. The coputation engine in the Deskjet is a Z8 > microcontroller, so it doesn't exactly have the kind of muscle > required to do postscript processing at a resonable performance No, no, no. Use the DPS in the cube to handle the PostScript, and just send bitmaps to the printer. Especially with the new DJ+, this should work *very* well. > level. At the moment, I believe the maximum RAM address space in > the Deskjet is 256K (two 128K RAM cartridges). If you do graphics > that has a lot of black area, the Deskjet can get kind of expensive > to operate too; the ink carts go for about $20 and will do 500 That's only four cents a sheet. A laser cartridge at $100 lasts only 5000 sheets---that's two cents a sheet---and I'll bet the amortization of the laser cost over the sheets printed is higher than with the DeskJet. The DJ is a wonderful, wonderful deal. > hundred pages. Graphics with large black areas can also suffer > from a lot of wrinkle in the paper due to the water-based ink. I normally fed 50# book paper through my DJ---takes care of that problem nicely. (50# book is maybe 28# letter---not too much heavier than standard 20# xerox paper, but it sure looks and feels nicer.) > So, you see, the desk jet is sort of like buying a Porsche and > taking out a 15 year loan to pay it off; cheap now, but you pay for > a long time. If you want to do a lot of graphics with a lot of > black area, the laser printers cheaper consumables will save you > money in the long run. For mostly text output, the Deskjet is > about a break-even propsition. I dunno. A typical laser printer at $2000 (we are talking NeXT here) would mean you'd have to print ($2000.00/.04) or 25,000 sheets to break even---many people may *never* go through those 50 reams of paper. Probably not in the lifetime of that particular engine. DeskJet is for personal printing, and it excels there. Lasers are for high-volume personal or office printing. > What would make sense would be to port the Ghostscript Postscript > to HP PCL converter for the NeXT machine. Ghostscript builds the Why, with DSP in the cube? -tom