Re: Need advice on Postscript/PCL printer
Thanks a lot for helping, Hubert and Joachim and Oliver. I wish they
were still producing those Kyocera :-( (I'll try some phone calls
anyway tomorrow err... this morning.)
It's starting to be a bit painful to make a choice, I'd like to just
go and get it tomorrow morning... maybe.
I just noticed that groff default output is Adobe Postscrip 3, so
common tools used in Linux assume PS3 (and I still have slink here, so
it's been a while so far), which may be one more reason to renounce
buying the Lexmark which has PS2...
Yet Oliver Elphick seems to have no probls with PS2 and Linux:
On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 07:02:10AM +0100, Oliver Elphick wrote:
>
> HP LaserJet 6MP has 2Mb standard
> Postscript 2014.108 (according to the test page). In normal terms
> that is PostScript 2. A new printer may support a later version -
> this one was made in 1996.
Joachim either (quoted below) says no probls with the Kyocera 680FS
which is unlike to be PS3.
So the Lexmark may do. Well I confess that I was tempted by the PS3
option of the Epson EPL-5800 (which includes 16 more Megs RAM bringing
it to 32)... but it is really 50% the price of the whole printer
without it :-( <sorrow>
So what about the just-PCL6 version of it?, 1200dpi 16Megs RAM 133MHz
RISC (the Lexmark has a 67MHz one), at least I won't have to add ram
to it. Ghostscript seems to have a PCL XL driver which is not just
going to send a bitmap of the whole page to the printer in the gdi
style. I could not just put a ...2ps filter... well I know nothing
about printing with Linux, so far, I'll have to read docs and try. If
I really don't get out, I could by the PS3 option later (possibly
annoying, though, and a bit more expensive than starting with it).
I'm thinking about the Epson _even_if_ :-/ this evening a friend of
mine has told me that he had an Epson inkjet - Stylus Photo 500C or
the like - which broke very soon and after being repaired _never_
worked fine :-O <I wouldn't like that!> so after bringing it for
fixing again and again he renounced, he has just bought an HP 840C for
at work they have HPs and they never break, my brother too has one and
he's glad about it... _but_ the characteristics of the Laserjet 1100
are far below those of the Epson EPL-5800, practically at the same
price (and exactly the same price of the Lexmark Optra E312, which
seems to be superior anyway).
On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 11:48:51AM +0200, Joachim Trinkwitz wrote:
>
> Try to get a Kyocera 680FS with PS option, they used to be quite cheap
> nowadays (Kyocera don't produce them any more). I've got one, and it
(Mmmmm... I have the catalog of a great hardware/software shop where
lots of brandnames have their own guys... kind of a permanent
expo... actually kyocera isn't mentioned... If they don't produce it
anymore, are they going to maintain servicing?)
> works great here (using the CUPS packages from woody, but lpr/lprng
> worked too). I put some EDO-RAM from an older PC in to increase the
> memory.
>
The Lexmark too accepts just standard EDO, don't know Brother, HP,
Epson [guess not].)
On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 11:37:23AM -0600, Hubert Chan wrote:
>
> I don't know if I'd recommend the HL-730. The construction isn't
> the greatest (I broke part of the output tray), it is meant to be a
> Windows printer (though the Ghostscript guys made a filter for it),
> and it seems to run out of toner rather quickly (at least compared
> to my old IBM laser printer, which we never had to replace the toner
> in the over 5 years that we had it).
>
(Toner hungry compared to IBM [and Lexmark I'm told it's IBM], Ok,
that Brother is definitely out.)
>
> For myself, I found that for text documents, 2MB was fine at 600dpi. I
> survived with 512KB at 300dpi. Usually, printers support some sort of
> compression, so you don't quite need as much RAM as you would think.
>
> About your other e-mail: I have 2MB of RAM on my printer. It
> doesn't support PostScript, so I filter using Ghostscript (well,
> actually apsfilter, which uses Ghostscript).
> HTH
>
Ah ok, 2megs but _no_ PS... I guess interpreting PS may involve need
of some more ram, actually the "dépliant" of the Lexmark shows a (tiny
nearly invisible) warning about the fact that depending on the
complexity of the documents to be printed some more ram may become
indispensible.
So far I'm for Epson. PCL6 (arrrrgh). Of course I'll check if anybody
is selling/supporting Kyoceras (or if any equivalent still exists.)
Thanks a lot again, Nicola
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