🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ALMS.89Oct3121308@brazil.cambridge.apple.com> alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew L. M. Shalit) writes:

   First the moral:

     When HP says "The DeskWriter is our supported Macintosh printer, not
     the Laserjet IIP", you should believe them.

Horse-puckey!  The real Moral is:  Read my review when it comes out,
so you know what you're getting in for! ;-)  Seriously, your problem
is in the MacPrint driver, which I have also found unsatisfactory thus
far, especially in my Script Writing application, during which time
printing is AGONIZINGLY slow.

However, the Jetlink Express driver, which is not even tailored for
the IIP like MacPrint 1.2 (You ARE using the IIP driver in 1.2, arent
you?)  Has some other niceties that would pacify you a bit.

First JLX has 4 outline fonts (Courier, Times, Helvetica, & Symbol)
for use with the driver; others are available (for a fee).

Second, they seem to handle certain things better (like printing in
the internal font).

HOWEVER, they can't handle printing multiple copies in certain docs
via chooser level COPIES options.  Don't know why.  Maybe because this
is a LJ II driver, not specifically an LJ IIP.

   In the base configuration, the IIP is a very nice letter-quality printer.
   It's small, light, and very cute.  It's 300 dpi, but memory limitations
   keep it from doing a full page at that resolution.

This is true.

   I thought the IIP came with Courier, Times, Helvetica, and Symbol, in a
   variety of sizes.  It doesn't.  It comes only with Courier, in 10 and 12
   point.  Any other fonts have to be loaded from cartridges or built from
   bit-maps in your computer.

Yeah, I thought it came with more fonts also.  There are 2 font
families included: a bunch of courier and one or two Line Printer
(like that would be real different from courier!;-)  I was told on the
phone with HP, though, that the IIP had more fonts (I seem to recall
14 being the number bandied about) than the II.  Anyone comment on that?

   Printing with a built-in font (i.e. Courier 10 or 12 point) is quite
   fast, and doesn't eat up the printer's memory.  However, printing
   anything else is *very* slow.  Slow means 2-4 minutes a page.  Also,
   using Macintosh fonts basically sends bits to the printer, so you
   can't print a whole page of single spaced 300 dpi text. Of course, it
   tries for 2 or 3 minutes before telling you it's out of memory.

Bunkaroony.  I can print a page full of 300DPI text (via ATM, for
instance) with my 512K IIP.  I don't know why you can't, but I've had
no troubles doing it.  Maybe my page full isn't as full as yours, but
I'd doubt that.

Also, the speed of printing is a direct result of the DRIVER.  Make
sure you get the MacPrint 1.2, minimum, and read my review in Computer
Shopper in January (lead time, sorry;-) to see the differences between
the 4 commercial drivers for the mac.

   Even when I got the fonts basically working, I was still stuck by the
   fact that I couldn't print a full page of letter quality text in anything
   but Courier 10 or 12.  There are two ways I could upgrade the printer:
   buy a font cartridge (will give fast printing but for a limited number
   of type faces;  plus, the only cartridges come with non-standard named
   fonts, e.g. TmsRmn instead of Times), or buy more memory (gives lots
   of flexibility for $400, but still prints dog-slow).  Instead I think
   I'm going to sell the printer and price out a PLP from General
   Computer.

I don't know why you can't print a full page of text at 300 DPI...
would you care to email me a binhexed document for me to test?

Also, I suspect that ATM (and Sys 7.0, eventually) will make this
printer muy nicer.  I'm reviewing ATM also, and can say that it really
makes my little IIP look like a PS printer.  The text looks grand!

However, let me also raise my voive in annoyance at HP for pricing 1MB
of Ram at $370 (street).  I was told that this is because HP is so
strict in their memory requirements that only the cream can be used,
but I find that answer unacceptable.  1MB simms are selling for ~$89
on the street, right?  Why couldn't they have used this technology?
Is there a good reason for it?  Who knows.  Not me.

The other commercial Drivers that can run the IIP are:

Grappler LS (and new LX) from Orange Micro
Printer Interface IV from (oops, slips my mind)

Anyway, don't give up the ship just yet!

jas
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Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu   DELPHI: JSULLIVAN	| University of Southern California