🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, I have finally done it. I sold my Atari SLM804 laser printer.
As you all know by now, I have spent the last 20 months trying to
get decent support from Atari Corp for their product. I couldn't
even get Atari to fix their buggy Diablo 630 Emulator, much less
release the Epson Emulator for the SLM804. There has been a German
Epson Emulator called LaserBrain, which I got a copy of over a year
ago with German docs (which I can't read). but, Atari USA has yet
to release an American version of LaserBrain.

And then there is the problem of using the SLM804 with Spectre/GCR. It
seems that Dave Small does have a 144 dpi printer driver for the SLM804,
but not a 300 dpi printer driver. So, even with a Spectre and a SLM804,
I can't get decent print outs. To do so would require spending another
$500 for UltraScript. I wish Dave Small could bundle UltraScript with his
products. Maybe that would lower the price of UltraScript to something
affordable by more people. What say Dave, could you talk to the fine Imagen
folks about bundling UltraScript with the GCR??

Anyway, as I really want to use Spectre/GCR, and as I would like to get a
HW PC Emulator one day, I need a printer that is more adaptable than the
SLM804. So, I have narrowed my choice down to two laser printers, the
new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet IIp (IIp) and the Panasonic 4450. Both printers
have serial and Centronics parallel interfaces.

The IIP is the cheaper of the two lps. I can buy it locally for $995, but
need to add an additional 1 meg board which costs $200 (third vendor board,
the HP memory board costs $400). So, for $1200 + ~$100 sales tax I can get 
the IIp. The problem with the IIp is that it is slow, at about 4 pages per
minute (4 ppm), and it lacks Epson emulation. So, while the IIp is cheaper
than the Panasonic it lacks some necessary features.

The Panasonic 4450 lists for $2500 but the street price locally is about $1600.
I can buy the 4450 from a mail order place in chicago for $1269, add another 
$230 for the necessary additional 1 meg of RAM and you are at $1500. And since
it is mail order I don't have to pay sales tax. The 4450 is 11 ppm, which is faster
than the slm804. The 4450 has builtin Epson fx-286e, panasonic 1092i, diablo 630,
ibm proprinter, and Laserjet+ emulation. This should allow most, if not all,
software to print on it. The 4450 also has dual 250 sheet trays, with optional
envelope and other size trays. The 4450 has optional font cartridges, and I
believe a PostScript cartridge (though that isn't needed with the availability
of UltraScript now). The 4450's toner cartridge is $35 and is rated at 5,000
sheets.

So, all in all, the Panasonic 4450 is the laser printer that I will probably
buy.

The purpose of this message is twofold. First, I would like to hear from anyone
who has the 4450 printer. what are your feelings about it? Has it worked well
with your ST?? Has it worked well with Spectre/GCR?? Would you buy it again?

And secondly, this message points out that Atari users have more choices now than
a year ago. The local price of the SLM804 is $1200 w/o UltraScript, and $1500
with UltraScript. Compare that price to the local price of $1200 for the 1.5 meg
version of the HP IIp, or the $1800 local price of the 1.5 meg version of the
Panasonic 4450 and you see that Atari has some stiff competition in the laser
printer area. Also, both Hewlett-packard and Panasonic have a better reputation,
at least to me, for QUALITY and SUPPORT than Atari does. I can buy the 4450
and immediately use it with more ST and Mac programs than the Atari SLM804. I
still can't use programs like AwardMaker or Certificate Maker with my SLM804
since those programs require an Epson printer.

Anyway, the net (pun intended :-) )result of this is   

	NO MORE SLM804 GRIPES FROM RICHARD COVERT

on usenet or anywhere else!!!

richard (Free at last, Thank God, I am free at last!!) covert
gtephx!covertr  (uucp address, force is my apollo node name ).