On 1/30/14 8:41 PM, Roger Harman wrote:
All of the low end printers have had a lobotomy to allow the price point to
be driven down. You need a printer that is not host-based - i.e. it has to
have a brain. Most now rely on the host (Windows, MAC, etc) to do the work.
Nothing new under the sun here: about a quarter-century ago, when even a
"naked engine" 300dpi laser printer (I understand that the page raster
was fed in through coax) would set one back $1000 or more, one could buy
something called a "JLaser" interface card, from an outfit called "Tall
Tree Systems," to spoon-feed the raster into the printer. I've never
encountered such things myself; I only know of them because Xerox
Ventura Publisher (the original, not the bloated PageFaker-knockoff that
Corel released, taking its name in vain) came with a driver for a JLaser
card.
In my experience, there's very little about any of HP's current
offerings that isn't "on the cheap," and the only reason they're not
cheapening them even more than they are is because they have a very
profitable inkjet line.
I think the last decent line of desktop laser printers HP offered was
probably the 2000-series, like my 2100M at home.
(Which is why my color laser is a Samsung: Sure, it's also a
cheaply-made machine, but it's a cheaply-made machine priced to compete
with inkjets, and unlike a bulky, noisy, expensive [Xerox or HP; I think
it was a Xerox] color laser I owned for less than 24 hours, some years
back, which advertised PostScript compatibility, but couldn't print even
a simple PostScript data stream out of Ventura [particularly ironic, if
it was indeed a Xerox], it's cheap, quiet, and compact enough that it
doesn't have to double as my DOS laser printer.)
--
JHHL
midrange.com
