🚀 go-pugleaf

I've had a Deskwriter for a couple of weeks, now, and am entirely
satisfied with it. To address some topics covered in recent postings:

Intended Use: I stress that I like the DW _within the context of my
needs._ I bought it as an Imagewriter upgrade, not as a scaled-down
laser printer, and viewed in that light it performs very well. I'm using
it at home for general correspondence, listings, and various small print
jobs.

System Requirements: I have a Mac IIcx, 4 Mb RAM, 80 Mb disk, so I've
seen no performance problems or memory limitations. The largest document
I've printed so far is a 20-page MacWrite II document. It printed
without any hitches, in 10 minutes. I did have one interesting moment,
though: I was trying to print a MacDraw document that contained a
large bit-mapped object (part of a screen dump). The DW quite happily
printed everything in the document _but_ the bit-mapped object. No
crash, no out-of-memory alert, just an incomplete print job. I
increased MacDraw II's multifinder memory allocation by 200K or so and
the document printed fine.

Compatibility: The only problems I've had are the well-documented ones
with Red Ryder 10.3 (Supposedly fixed with White Knight - anybody tried
it?) and Vantage. Everything else I've tried works fine (MW II, MacDraw
II, FullWrite, SuperPaint, Think C (listings), Mac Allegro Common Lisp
(listings), Reflex, a few others.

Print Quality: Just great. I bought a ream of standard xerographic bond
in a stationery store. The output on this paper, using the HP fonts, is
just about comparable to a laser printer. In some respects it's even
better. (e.g. a hairline is noticeably thinner and crisper on the DW
than with a Laserwriter Plus.)

Ink: Ah, the dreaded water-soluble ink. I thought long and hard about
this factor and decided that for my uses it was not crucial (I can see
that in many other situations it might be.) A couple of things I
considered: For years I have been writing checks and addressing
envelopes using an ordinary Pilot felt-tip pen. Guess what? Its ink is
just as water-soluble as the Deskwriter's (at least on the papers I
experimented with). I've had no problems with the pen; I expect no worse
from the DW. Remember, too, that laser-printed pages are also not
permanent. Ever put a xeroxed or laser-printed page up against a plastic
notebook in your briefcase? The print pulls off the paper when you pry
them apart. I've damaged many more pages through this phenomenon than
I've spilled coffee on! So, I concluded that while the ink is a problem,
it's one I can live with.

Overall: I'm quite satisfied with the ease of use, performance, and
print quality of the Deskwriter, again within the context of my system
and usage. I no longer need ear plugs while printing :-), and the DW is
a ball to watch.

Special Note: The December MacWorld has a brief review of the DeskWriter
(p. 206). While generally favorable, the review contains an illustration
claiming to be an example of DW text and graphics. I don't know how
MacWorld generated the illustration, but it is not, repeat NOT, a
worthwhile DW example. It appears to have been printed entirely at 72
dpi, including lines of text purportedly in HP outline fonts. I can only
guess that the entire illustration, including text, was produced in
MacPaint or some other bit-mapped application with a 72 dpi limit. If I
were HP I'd be quite upset about the picture!

						- John Gersh


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