#Used LaserJets?
11 messages in this thread
I am interested in a used HP LaserJetIII printer for desktop publishing
with an Amiga 3000. I have some questions. Some of them may be "dumb" but I
hope you'll bear with me. Here goes.
What's the difference between an HPLaserJetIII and a IIIP?
Is an HP brand Postscript cartridge usable in my proposed system. I
have used PacificPage's cartridge and know it works, but I din't know about
the HP cartridge.
What's a fair price for a used HPLaserJetIII? I know new ones go
for around $1,400 and with a postscript cartridge and 1MB of extra ram
would be about $2,000. Would $800-1,000 be in the ballpark?
This is a substantial investment to make with a stranger who lives
across the country. Any ideas about how to arrange for my protection in
case the printer doesn't perform as promised? Thanks, George
George,
The HP LJIII is now a discontinued printer. The IIIP is not. To learn
more about the differences, go HPPeriph and get the file named FEATUR.LJ
This file will show you some of the differences between the III, IIIP,
IIISi, IIP, IIPplus, and IIID printers.
The LJIII is replaced with the LJ4. The street price on the LJ4 is about
US$1400 right now. There is a version of the printer with the PS option
installed, an extra 4 Meg of ram (for a total of 6 megs), and a LocalTalk
interface card. I beleive it's street price is about US$2200.
The LJ4 is a 600 dpi printer!!!
HP has two PS cartridges for the LJ III family. The newer one is called
PS+ and is a Postscript version 2 cartridge. It also has capabilities for
being told to switch between PCL and PS from the computer (or front
panel). No need to power down, remove (or install) the cartridge, and
power up again to switch languages. The cartridge goes for about US$600.
I wouldn't use any other cartridge for PS due the above capabilities.
Note that I run the IIIP and do not have the PS or PS+ cartridge at this
time.
So, I wouldn't pay more than US$800 for a used LJIII with nothing added
on. I think a LJIII with the HP PS+ cartridge and an additional 2 megs of
ram is worth about US$1400. Though right now, if I could find a buyer for
my IIIP, I'd get the HP LJ4M (postscript version).
73, Kelly
Kelly:
I got a chance to see the HPLJ4 today. Unbelievable output from a $1400
printer! The store folks told me that there were no officially released
DOS Windows drivers for the 600 X 600 mode yet (they aren't due out till
1st qtr '93) but that they ARE drivers available here on CIS. I forgot to
ask him they were in the HPPER Forum, or elsewhere.
In any case, the printer is truly beautiful. The HPLJ4M (postscript
version) was selling at the store for around $2200.
What choices we have! For that same $2200, I can either get the HPLJ4/PS
or the NEC Model 95 _with_ built in PS and send/rec FAX capabilities!
Time to buy another lottery ticket. I assume you'll have the Amiga driver
for the LJ4 done by the time I get one? 🙂
Kelly
I just got an LJ4. It didn't work with the old cable I had hooked to a DJ.
I finally figured it out and got a new cable. I'm in the advertising
agency business and the printout is so good I think I'll use it for setting
type – don't tell my clients! I use Pagestream, FinalCopy and Word
Perfect. Inasmuch as PS and FC create outline fonts and print in graphic
format, I can't access all the nifty built-in fonts. Of course WP does not
have a printerdriver for an HP/LJ4 so that's a problem. I am using
LaserJet 500 soft Tms& Helv and get the built-in 12 times font which looks
pretty good. What do you think the benefits would be to me to buy the
PostScript option?
Jon Byk
Jon,
You could make a WP driver for the HP/LJ4, but it would likely be a LOT of
work. Hardest part would be getting the font width tables. I have tried
to make an WP driver. Don't use WP any more!
What will PS give you? Well, the PS simms come with the standard PS font
families, so you should be able to use PageStream right away with all the
PS fonts. Any PS fonts that weren't on the printer that you are using
could be downloaded to the printer. I beleive this is how FinalCopy does
PS printing – it comes with a utility to convert their font family into
downloadable PS fonts. So now that the program (PageStream, FinalCopy,
ProPage) do not have to build the huge bitmap files to send to the
printer, you can get much faster printing. All the work involved in
building bitmaps is handled in the printer.
WP must come with a PS driver, so you could even use it (don't know why!
grin> )
Your current method of using FinalCopy and PageStream will be limited to
300 dpi mode for a while – a 600 dpi inch driver for the LJ4 does not
exist at this time. Be a few weeks before I can get enough information to
write one (I don't have an LJ4 (yet)). But PS will allow you to go right
ahead and use the 600 dpi mode of the LJ4. Not sure just yet (have to do
some testing), but the print times using bitmaps created on the computer
will rise drastically – possibly up to 4 times as long compared to 300 dpi
printing.
Another benefit to PS in the printer – you can print EPS stuff in
PageStream (and ProPage). I know PPage will not print an EPS file to a
bit map printer and am pretty sure you can not with PageStream either.
The online rep for PageStream was not very clear on this and tried to
imply a number of times PageStream will print EPS files, then later says
to PS printers – shades of a used car salesman <grin>. He also recently
said they will NOT be coming out with a PageStream driver for the LJ4 to
take advantage of the 600 dpi mode.
<continued>
I wonder, does the new HPLJ4 allow the use of a hard drive for postscript
font storage? I hope it does, that is the only real answer to large font
libraries, if you want to speed up the file download time to the printer.
Chris
Chris,
I expect we'll soon be seeing LOTS of PS printers with those HP matchbox
drives in them. When I first saw those drives, I thought of printers
immediately, though most folks have been talking about them for
notebooks.
Malcolm
Chris, no mention of an HD option in the LJ4 announcement file.
Considering the amount of memory a person can stick into the LJ4, If you
download all the fonts first, you shouldn't have to download for each
document. May not have enough room for _every_ possible font, but should
get all the common fonts in there.
73, Kelly
Kelly,
The confusion about PageStream printing EPS files lies in the fact that
PageStream CAN decode the EPS files from some MAC/PC structured drawing
programs and thus print them as if the graphic were created in PgS. Also
if the EPS has a bitmapped header that will be printed if the EPS can not
be decoded. Unfortunatly since I do not have PS in my IIIp I did not pay
attention and don't know which EPS files PgS can decode.
BTW anyone want to buy my one month old 3meg IIIp for $850 so I can get a
LJIV too :)?
…AutoPilot Engaged…
-Paul-
And PS is a pretty universal language for printing. This what you wanted
to hear? Just for the record, I do not have PS printing capability at
this time!
73, Kelly
Benefits to buying the PostScript option: speed. Printing to a 300 or 600
dpi Postscript printer doens't really change the speed all that much
(except for rasterizing it in the printer of course) because the bottleneck
is the cable and the information being sent is identical. Going from 300 to
600 dpi in HP mode quadruples the information and is too slow to be of use
in an advertising business. (It's fine when printing text in PCL mode, but
dumping a bitmap image of a page from a desktop publishing is slow.) Plus
you'll get PostScript Type 1 font hinting (from PageStream) in PostScript
mode, better screens, EPS clip art compatibility…
Michael Soft-Logik