🚀 go-pugleaf

A couple of weeks ago I posted a request for information about
the Laserwriter IISC, Apple's low-cost laser printer.  Most of
the replies I got were fairly negative about the printer, mostly
because of the demands it places on its host Mac.  I got the
impression that unless you absolutely cannot find a way to
afford Apple's higher-end printers, you should avoid the IISC.

A succinct summary statement:

} From: cs.utexas.edu!emx.utexas.edu!rchan (Ricardo Chan)
} 
} We had a IIsc for a while and we ended up upgrading the printer to a IInt
} because the quality isn't satisfactory and graphics are very limited when
} using MacDraft.

The biggest complaint had to do with fonts.  You have to store
a lot of large fonts on your host Mac, and there aren't very
many of these fonts available.  Also, I think that special
styles of fonts (e.g. italics, bold) are generated on the fly,
rather than from separated bit images.

} From: emx.utexas.edu!rchan (Ricardo Chan)
} 
} The fonts take a large space in your System file because you need a font
} 4 times the size of the one you want to print.  If you want to print
} Times 12 you need Times 48 to print and Times 12 to display on the
} screen.  That also means you are restricted to the fonts they give
} you unless you have large fonts for everything you want.

} From: cs.utexas.edu!coherent.com!dplatt (Dave Platt)
} 
} (4) You really do need a hard disk, and enough free memory to construct
}     an in-memory image of the page in question.  The hard disk is needed
}     because you must have 4x-oversize copies of the fonts that you want
}     to use, so that the IIsc driver can (for example) use a 40-point, 72
}     dot/inch Times image to construct a 10-point, 300 dot/inch image on
}     the page.  These oversize fonts take up lots of space!

} From: David Casseres <cs.utexas.edu!apple.com!casseres>
} 
} Note that the main PostScript feature missing in the IISC is PostScript
} fonts.  With the IISC you get only Times, Helvetica, Courier, and Symbol,
} in standard sizes (i.e. if you try for 48-point Times you'll see jaggies).
} I've heard that 3rd parties are "working on" more of the large bitmap fonts
} that the IISC uses.
} 
} Another point to bear in mind: the very large fonts required by the IISC
} occupy so much disk space that it's kind of impractical to use them much
} on a floppy-based system.

} From: lanai.cs.ucla.edu!beto (Alberto Avritzer)
} 
} The main problem that I find with the SCII is in using
} Latex, because of the well known font problem.
} 
} I was told that they would fix that problem and allow 
} latex use it's full set of fonts.

One correspondent also brought up the issue of RAM:

} From: David Casseres <cs.utexas.edu!apple.com!casseres>
} 
} Your 3rd point involves another one that you may not be aware of:  the
} driver software for the IISC needs lots of memory to work well, and
} performance is closely linked to available memory.  You didn't say what
} sort of Mac your friends are going to be using, but while 1MByte RAM does
} work, the IISC is at its best in a system where you can run MultiFinder
} and do background printing, i.e. at least 2 MByte.  When printing in the
} background, the IISC ties up the Mac about the same as any other Apple
} printer that prints in the background.
} 
} Finally, there are cases, related to tight RAM space, where the IISC fails
} to print large-size text that has QuickDraw "styles" such as bold, outline,
} shadow, etc.  This is only a problem if you are hung up on 24-point outline
} text, and las than about 4 MByte of RAM.

On the plus side, it looks like the IISC isn't too bad as far as speed:

} From: David Casseres <cs.utexas.edu!apple.com!casseres>
} 
} On the other hand, if you have
} lots of RAM, like 5 MByte, you can print in the foreground if you like,
} and OUTPERFORM a LaserWriter Plus on most documents and even outperform
} an NT on quite a few documents.

} From: cs.utexas.edu!emx.utexas.edu!rchan (Ricardo Chan)
} 
} Speed is not a problem.   It works pretty fast.  About as fast as the IInt.
} but the quality leaves a lot out.

Thanks to everybody that replied.

-- 
-- Kelvin Thompson      {...,uunet}!cs.utexas.edu!nth!kelvin
   Graphics Hack        kelvin%nth.uucp@cs.utexas.edu