Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!hub!cavevax!jim
From: jim@cavevax.ucsb.edu (Oreo Cat)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: 9600 bps bottleneck on Laserwriter Plus
Summary: How do I get things down the line faster?
Message-ID: <3495@hub.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 90 18:11:07 GMT
Sender: news@hub.UUCP
Reply-To: jim@cavevax.ucsb.edu (Oreo Cat)
Distribution: na
Organization: Some lab somewhere at UCSB
Lines: 24

Hello all you postscript hacks out there!  I have a quick question for
you.  We have an Apple Laserwriter Plus here in our lab.  Occaisonally
we have to print out large bitmapped images.  Since our printer is 
hooked up to a serial line, it is limited to 9600 bps.  Since bitmaps
are inherently large, it takes a long time just to get the image into
the printer.  I have timed it, and it takes just slightly more than
the time to I computed it to take just to get across the line.  I figure
with handshaking, and all the other miscellaneous delays, that it doesn't
take the printer any time at all to figure out how to print the thing,
it's just waiting for the data to all get there.  Some of these images
take quite a long time to print out.  Since we only have one printer, and
it is used daily by 4-5 people, having the printer essentially unavailable
for 30 minutes to an hour at a time is a great inconvenience.  And if
multiple images need to be printed out, other people can sometimes get
upset.  The serial port on the host computer can be driven at up to
38400 bps, but unfortunatley the serial port on the LW+ only goes up to
9600.  I am told that the appletalk connection runs at something like
64 kbps.  Is there any way of connecting this to a serial port?  Or is
there any way of making the serial port run faster than 9600?
  It now looks like we'll be printing more of the bitmaps, so any
cheap solutions to this problem would be greatly appreciated!

  Jim Lick
  jim@cavevax.ucsb.edu