🚀 go-pugleaf

>The money has finally come available to upgrade to a new RIP, and I was
>wondering what other products are on the market (that can drive the
>L300).

You're pretty much limited to what Linotype offers. Most of the other
companies have concentrated on building their own RIPs for their
typesetters, or developing new imagesetters.

The one exception that I am aware of is the Hyphen RIP, which relies on
a PS clone interpreter and some magic (perhaps RISC? I don't recall)
to get some pretty amazing numbers. I haven't heard from any real-world
users of the product, and don't know if it's even available. I don't
even know who makes the product (there was a brief blurb about it on
the cover of MacWEEK a year or more ago).
 
>I'm looking for pointers to articles and personal experience. I'm
>waiting on a copy of Seybold's imagesetter test. I read it when it first
>came out, but I don't recall if 3rd party RIPs were driving L300s.

Linotype's latest offering, the RIP 4, is pretty competitive with most
of the other RIPs out their (with the exception of Compugraphic's 
new RIP with a 50 MHz 68030). It will probably cost you upwards of
$26,000, however (Linotype may give you some token $$$ off for trading
in the old RIP 1). 

Another option would be to try to pick up a newer RIP from a used
equipment dealer such as Bob Weber, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio. If you
can locate a copy of TypeWorld, look in the back for the names/phone
numbers of such vendors.
 
>BTW, are there any mailing lists related to typesetting and service
>bureaus?

Don't know if there are any, but if there are enough people interested,
I may be able to set something up (we'll soon have a machine up on Usenet).
Otherwise, there is a LOT of imagesetter/service bureau discussion on
the Desktop Publishing Forum of CompuServe. (We also try to give the
topic as much coverage as we can in the magazine. That's my background,
service bureau operation/management).

Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not Personal Publishing or Capital Cities/ABC.
Personal Publishing Magazine is a co-sponsor of CompuServe's DTP Forum, but
we do NOT get paid for it (we do have 2 or 3 gratis accounts, though).

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