SUMMARY of color printer recommendations.

From: Rick Preston (flp@tcs.com)
Date: Fri Oct 12 1990 - 11:34:14 CDT


The original question.
>
> I am interested in getting a color printer. The application
> is printing color screens from a User interface we are working on.
> We currently have on loan a Seiko CH5500. This printer connects
> to the RGB video out of a 4/65.
>
> I would like your opinions as which color printer are the
> best for the money? Do you prefer the color postscript printers?
> What are the differences in speed/quality with the postscript color
> printers? And finally how to select the best candidate?
>
I am still compiling information but the email responses have quit.
So here is a summary of those generous responses.
flp

Now the answers from the ether.

1.)
> Quick opinion gleaned from several articles on postscript printers and
> colour output devices....QMS-Color 100 (or something like this I'm
> writing this on the fly) seems to have garnered the most attention and
> praise...it is also has PostScript.
>
> No I don't work for QMS, but I surte like their products....if on they
> had a nice, small, duplexing engine....

2.)
> We had a Tektronix 4693D color printer at my old site. After comparing the
> Seiko to it, I thought the Tek was slightly better (the blacks were darker).
> The Seiko I compared to was not screen capture type and neither was the Tek.
> Word of warning, screen capture is simple, but leaves no room for the
> enhancements you and your users will demand when you get bored with 72 dots per
> inch resolution pictures (the resolution of the screen your capturing). With
> a parrallel (or whatever) digital interface, you can now store images at
> theoretically infinite resolution and print them at the max resolution of
> the printer (the Tek was 300 dots per inch). The difference is glaringly
> obvious for fine detail, even more obvious for any text in the picture.
>
> If a Color Postscript printer had been available at the timie we bought the
> Tek (about 1 and a half years ago) no question we would have froked over the
> extra bucks for it. You can't beat the resolution and hatched characters with
> rough edges don't get any better just because they're in color.

3.)
> A considerable range of color printers are available. Much depends
> upon how much money you're willing to spend.
>
> At the low end, the HP PaintJet for less than $1,000 hanging off of an
> RS232 interface is about the cheapest you can get color printing for.
> It's slow, the colors fade within a week, and resolution and color
> selection are both limited, but for the price it's probably impossible
> to beat.
>
> At or at least near the high end, the Canon LP500 color copier with
> SCSI interface does everything you ever wanted a color printer to do,
> including excellent resolution, handling 24-bit color, and image
> transforms, as well as having an embedded color scanner. For about
> $80,000.
>
> Of course, there's lots of stuff in between.

4.)
> Well, we only have one color printer, but it seems to work fairly well.
> We've got a QMS color postscript printer. I b'lieve that it costs about
> 1 dollar per page to print, and print quality is fairly good (300 dpi). The
> color is nice too (uses a 3 color or 4 color ribbon). My only complaint
> with it is that some images don't come out quite as nice as they look on
> the screen since the printer has to dither to get some shades, but it is
> still a great little postscript printer...
> Personally, I DO prefer the postscript printers since almost all graphics
> programs or programs that generate graphics support postscript output or
> encapsulated postscript output (just as good).

5.)
> Hmm, I am not that familiar with color printers, I think Tektronix
> should be one of the best companies makes them. We have a Tektronix 4693DX
> color printer here, DON'T buy this. Since the one we have only do Sun
> raster files, the dithering software is not that great, and the printout
> aren't that nice. However, they have a new color printer annouced last
> couple of months, called Phaser DX. The printer engine itself is exactly
> the same as ours, but it is a COLOR postscript printer. Which is so
> much better, I think. The price is $7995.00, we can upgrade ours for
> $3000.00. However, I haven't have time to go and test print some of
> our raster->ps color files yet. I hope if you get a chance, ask
> the rep to come and show you the demo and let me know the results :-).
> I don't know too much about the color printer, but I definitely
> recommend a color postscript printer !!!!
> Call your local Tektronics contact for demo and price, I guess.

Many thanks to;
        ucbcad!hunter.crim.ca!hall (Ron Robert Hall)
        howard@nmtvs249 (Howard Hart)
        ucbcad!kahala.soest.hawaii.edu!bob (Bob Cunningham)
        ucbcad!hbo!bice (Brent A. Bice)
        tim@prelude (Kam Tim Chan)

Other interests.
         ucbcad!Corp.Sun.COM!kevin (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
>
> Let me know if you're interested in Film Recorders - I just did SCSI
> drivers for a couple...
_______________________________________________________________________________
Rick Preston
Systems Administrator Voice: (216) 889-1029
Teknekron Communications Systems Fax: (216) 828-3642
#200, 3001 112th Ave NE Internet: flp@tcs.com
Bellevue, Washington 98004 UUCP: tcs!gumby!flp@uunet.UU.NET



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