Laser Printers: A Guide To What's What

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday November 10, 1986

By KEVIN BERGIN*

LASER printers account for only a small percentage of printer sales. In dollar terms, sales of non-impact printers (including page and laser printers)amounted to $US426 million. The forecast for page printers sales in 1989 is in the region of $US900 million. While these amounts are significant, page printers have a long way to go to catch up with the $US1.1 billion (1985)sales of dot matrix line printer sales.

At the top end of the range, laser printers cost about $300,000 (IBM 3800 or Xerox 9700)_a substantial investment, even for a printer with the capability to produce high-quality output at a possible 90 pages a minute. A number of manufacturers have jumped in with cheaper printers to suit all tastes and budgets, making desk-top laser printers with speeds ranging from eight to 20 pages a minute.

At the lower end of the price range, there are a wealth of new desk-top page printers. Below, in alphabetical order, is a round-up of some of the more popular page printers.

The Apple Laserwriter Plus: Designed by Apple as a letter-quality printer for use with the Apple Macintosh, the Laserwriter is designed around Canon's laser print engine. It is capable of 300 dots an inch (a staggering 7,200,000 dots on a page 10 x 8 inches) and has a print speed of eight pages a minute(depending on the font and mixture of text and graphics to be printed). It has a dedicated 68000 microprocessor which would normally be used for font and mode selection, but can also be used for special applications. The Laserwriter Plus comes as standard with 12 fonts, and can be connected to the Mac, Mac Plus and the Apple IIGS, via an Appletalk port.

The mixing of standard text and graphics is possible (up to 300 dots an inch), using the included Postscript Page Description Language. The recommended retail price is $12,190. The Laserwriter Plus is being used in conjunction with the Mac's Desk-top Publishing program, to produce documents ranging from standard letters to manuscripts ready for publishing.

The Canon LBP-8 range: This laser printer range is based on Canon's laser print engine (as used in many other laser printers), and like the Laserwriter Plus, is capable of eight pages a minute and has a resolution of 300 dots an inch. Interfacing can be achieved via centronics parallel, or RS232 serial(almost a universal standard) at up to 9,600 bits a second (1,200 characters a second). There are 16 fonts available: one of them is resident in the machine(ROM based); the other 15 come in the form of a plug-in cartridge. There are two models in the range_the LBP-8A1 and the LBP-8A2_the difference being the size of the printer buffer (a temporary area for input/output operations), and graphics capability. The LBP-8A1 has 128 Kilobytes, and prints bit-image graphics from binary data, and the LBP-8A2 has 1.1 Megabytes and will print graphics from both bit-image and vector-based data. The prices of the LBP-8 range are $5,990 for the LBP-8A1, and $9,250 for the LBP-8A2.

The LBP-8A1 is being used for a wide range of applications around Australia.

Hewlett Packard Laserjet/Laserjet Plus/Laserjet 500 Plus: The Laserjet was the first desk-top laser printer. It is also based on Canon's print engine. The Laserjet has a standard RS232 interface, running up 9,600 bits a second. The Laserjet Plus and the Laserjet 500 Plus have both RS232 and centronics parallel interfaces. All three have a resolution of 300 dots an inch, and can print up to eight pages a minute. Hewlett Packard claims that the replaceable toner/drum cartridge will print 3,000 pages before needing replacement.

The Laserjet Plus comes with extra Random Access Memory (RAM), typefonts and styles (rather than the single font of the original Laserjet), and the ability to transfer other fonts from the computer. The Laserjet 500 Plus offers larger input and output trays which are controllable from the front panel, or by program control. Hewlett Packard recently adopted Imagen's document description language (DDL) to allow users the desk-top publishing capabilities that are associated with the Mac and the Apple Laserwriter.

The retail prices for the Laserjet, Laserjet Plus and Laserjet 500 Plus are$6,535, $8,633 and $11,716.

The IBM Pageprinter: Big Blue, not wanting to be left out, has its own range of page printers, and, as usual, they are all rated at around the top of the range. The basic pageprinter is capable of 12 pages a minute, and uses an LED array as its image-forming device. IBM designed this printer primarily for use with the System/34, 36 and 38 minicomputers; but it also supports PCs and the IBM PC network system, as well as the IBM Token-ring network standard.

In short, IBM has designed it to work across a range of its own equipment, but, no doubt, it would be pleased if it was adopted for use on computers lacking the IBM logo.

The IBM Pageprinter is sold in Australia for a recommended retail price of$15,635.

Impact Laser Printers: Impact Systems is offering five laser printers. The L800 is an eight-page a minute printer with a 300 dots an inch resolution. Up to two megabytes of RAM are provided, with four resident fonts. Another 60 additional fonts can be obtained on cartridges and the L800 will emulate a number of other popular printers. The L800T is a version of the L800 aimed at the System/34, 36 and 38 market.

Impact's L400 is similar to the L800, with a reduced print rate of four pages a minute and only two resident fonts. Impact also sells two Decmate compatible laser printers, to be used in place of DEC products.

The ITT/Qume Laserten: Sigma Data is the distributor for this joint venture by ITT's Qume operation and Hitachi. The Laserten's print engine is an Hitachi laser system, giving a print speed of 10 pages a minute, with 300 dots an inch resolution. A variety of fonts are available on cartridge (up to three cartridges can be used at once). The Laserten will emulate any Qume Daisywheel model. It comes with RS232 and Centronics interfaces as standard, and up to 512 Kilobytes of RAM. The Laserten sells at a recommended price of $6,951.

Sigma Data is the exclusive distributor for Imagen Corporation, which manufactures laser printers and specialised software for the printers. The software is designed to take advantage of the current laser-printer technology, and to achieve the best results from these printers, as well as set some standards in the laser printer area. In any event, Imagen seems to be set to join the race and add another standard to laser technology in Australia.

The Ricoh LP4080 Range: Distributed by Mitsui Computers in Australia, the LP4080M and the LP4080R contain Ricoh's own laser engine. It operates at eight pages a minute, with a 300 dots an inch resolution. It is capable of emulating a large range of printers and has a 68000 processor on board, with up to two megabytes of RAM available. Both RS232 serial, and centronics parallel interfaces are available. The QMS Laser printers: Bell and Howell sells the QMS range of laser printers in Australia. On offer from QMS is the Lasergrafix series, the K8 and the Smartwriter (at least the names lean toward a rational description). The Lasergrafix 2400, 1200 and 800 have interfaces for a large range of minicomputers, and have a print speed of 24, 12 and eight pages a minute respectively. All three of these printers have a resolution of 300 dots an inch.

The Smartwriter will emulate Diablo, Epson and Qume impact printers, has a print speed of eight pages a minute, and has both RS232 serial and centronics parallel interfaces. The K8 is the latest release from QMS, and is a desk-top laser printer with a print speed of eight pages a minute. It has the standard 300-dots-an-inch resolution and comes with up to eight fonts resident. An additional 36 fonts can be added, and the K8 can emulate a number of impact printers.

The printers mentioned by no means represent all that are available, but cover the elements offered by the manufacturers of laser printers. If you must own a laser printer then you would be wise to staple your cheque book down and take a good look around at prices, performance, reliability and compatibility, before commiting yourself.

It's clear that laser printers offer a lot more power than traditional printers. One only has to look at the applications they are being used for. While some of these are very impressive (at the top of the scale, the preparation of manuscripts), it is not often that most companies feel the urge to publish a few books (unless they are publishers).

Peering into offices, you will see a limited number of laser printers around, and they will not become as common as tea-breaks until there is a balance between cost and performance. There is much to be said for the dot matrix and daisywheel printers, especially as we all have them in our offices and homes.

If you must buy a laser printer, then the Canon LBP-8A1 and LBP-8A2 seem to be the most reliable (others use so many Canon components), and both represent reasonable value.

*Kevin Bergin is a freelance journalist/analyst programmer.