Conference 7.286::macintosh

>    I queried the guy and said 'You mean that the computers on the
>    network did not have enough memory to process the print job?'..
>    and he VERY emphatically said 'nope, the memory limitation is
>    in the printers'.

It is possible that a dearth of memory in a printer will slow 
down communication enough so that shared use of the printer is compromised.
Still, I'd agree that print spooling in the computers is a more likely
problem.
Laser printers are designed to work at network speeds, ink jets don't
normally need to.  Upgrading to a laser printer on that school's
network was probably the right thing to do, loss of color notwithstanding.

- tom]

    
    Another story with HP deskwriters. I have an HP660C and was having
    intermittent printing problems. I am running 7.5.5 with OT 1.1.1
    and appletalk to both printers. My other printer is a DEClaser 1152.
    I have downloaded the latest drivers from the HP page, and they
    helped somewhat. I finally installed the GX driver and GX itself,
    since that time I have had no problem printing. A nice feature of
    GX is that you can drop docs on either desktop printer without
    selecting it as the primary printer and it prints! Thay way I can
    have the HP selected as primary for my kids to use and I can just
    drop my WP docs on the laser printer when I need quality printouts.
    With RD2 in memory map mode, my system software only takes just over
    8 meg, down from 13 meg before RD2. The HP GX driver seems real 
    stable and I am happy with GX.
    
    Mike
    
    

    
    Thanks for the hint; I'll try the GX drivers indeed, despite the extra
    memory GX itself presumably uses (btw, what is RD2? How come you're using
    less memory with GX than without?), especially since I've had a real
    hard-time installing the HP deskwriter 660C latest drivers on my parents
    Centris:
    
    . The V8 software sometimes hung the system, always slowed it down, and
      occasionally printed some odd stuff (blank pages output, partially
      printed sheets, ...)  So we felt the need for new drivers.
    
    . After installing V9, the Centris could not print at all anymore:
      It complained about the color cartridge beeing reeinstalled (which
      was inexact) and asked for re-alignment; which I did.  I retried, and
      it complained again about the same thing.  I hit continue, the
      spooling started... and hung right away.  I went through any MacOS
      usual repair (checked for free space: OK, as far as 100Mb free is enough;
      zapped PRAM, rebuilt desktop, used Disk First Aid, etc...)
      After all this, and many reboots, the spooling went OK, but this
      time HP print monitor hung at 50% job completeness (so called... in fact
      the printer didn't output anything).  I waited for 10 minutes (!)
      then cancelled the job (at least, I was able to do that... but it
      took 30 or 40s to get rid of it; the whole system went sluggish during
      the operation, 8 or 10 times slower than usual).  I checked the
      connections (OK, especially since they worked before the SW upgrade). 
    
      To this point, I realized that the ink of the color cartridge had run
      down between the container and the fold that connects to the injectors!
      Brand new cartridge, HP made, out of order right away.  Fine: the previous
      one just never worked, as we installed it and didn't use it for two
      weeks and the ink dried into the injectors; cleaning could not remedy.
      The one before allowed 20 colorful pages or so and it was over.  $40
      each.  Economic, personal printer, they call that stuff...
    
      "... if the problem persists, replace the cartridge".  Thanks for the
      message.  I've none left, so I just remove the old one, and select
      greyscale printing.  No way.  The HP software now complains about the
      lack of color cartridge, and doesn't want to go further and use the
      printer with only the black ink cartridge installed. #$%@! HP!
    
      Downgrade to V8 drivers. Same error messages. Tweaking, rebooting,
      manipulating extensions, control panels...  Now we're back to the
      original situation, before the upgrade, and half a day is gone.  I'll
      send the bill to HP:  time and material, at consultant price.
   
    
    	-- Olivier.

    
    RD2 is Ram Doubler 2. 
    
    What he is saying is that with Ram Doubler 2 loaded and set to memory
    map mode only (no virtual memory used) his system takes up less space
    in memory than it would without Ram Doubler 2. I believe what this does
    is cause the OS to use the same settings as if virtual memory were on
    but not give you the overhead of having a large swap file on your disk,
    or having to actually swap. PowerMac native applications use less
    memory when virtual memory is on...they use a different code/segment
    loader that is able to load smaller sections into memory. This is
    faster and more efficient, but it has the drawback I mentioned above.
    Ram Doubler 2 allows people with enough RAM to take advantage of the
    speed/effiency of the new code loader without having to allocate hard
    disk space or wait for disk access.
    
    Mario

    I installed GX and the adequate drivers for both the 550C and the 660C
    resp. on the PM7200 and the Centris.
    
    This works fine on the PM7200/HP550C.  The display of the printer as an
    icon on desktop, as well as the extra menu when it is selected, improve
    a lot printing services accessibility!  Moreover, the driver is more
    recent than the V6.* I was using and it seems more efficient.  It does
    not eat CPU anymore, it seems.
    
    However, there's a drawback: the fax/modem extension I used to see in the
    chooser (allowing the switch printer/fax) does not show up anymore.
    I guess I'll have to ask for a GX compatible one to the modem manufacturer,
    hoping there's one available...
    
    As regards the Centris/HP660C, things still are weird.  This damn
    driver keeps on asking for cartridge alignment, even when only the
    black and white cartridge is loaded.  Printouts still have horizontal
    smudges, voiding the extra resolution, which I gather come from the
    catridge cleaning mechanism, which design is really stupid (although
    I doubt other brands show anything more clever, do they?).
    I think I'll get rid of the 660 and buy a cheap laser printer for my
    parents (they do very little color printouts, so its likely they will
    not complain a lot if I remove color ability, especially if they can
    get quality, speed and cost-effectiveness).
    
    Any hint about the right choice for a personal laser printer
    (specs: approx. $800 max, able to print about 40 to 50 pages a day,
    toner cartridges not too expensive and easy enough to replace. Speed
    at least the same as HP660, which I gather will be easy to achieve in
    the laser world...)?
    
    Thanks,
    
    	-- Ol.
    
    
    

    I'm real happy with my HP LJ5MP. 
    
       erik

    
    I have to put in a second for the HP LaserJet 5MP.
    
    It is a great little printer, and I've recently seen it priced at $700.
    The 6MP will replace it soon at the $1000 price mark.
    
    I have my 5MP and my 550C running without QuickDraw GX drivers, hanging
    off a Mini-EtherPrint adapter conected to a 10baseT hub. Both printers
    work just fine from both the 7200 and the 9500. I don't have any
    performance problem with the drivers either. Are you sure there isn't
    more to this than just the HP drivers? (BTW they worked fine when
    everything was running on LocalTalk too.)
    
    Mario

    I think the 6MP has already replaced the 5MP.  The 6MP is available
    locally for $900.
    
    				Paul

    
    I was using the AppleTalk Quickdraw drivers...  There might have
    been some conflict with something else but I already put out of the
    extensions folder everything I would not actually need, and it still
    had (slight) performance problems.  I could notice the difference
    essentially when AfterDark came to display lines moving across the
    screen, warp dots, etc...  It was very fast without HP background stuff &
    HP drivers and alternatively fast/slow/fast/slow with them.  Besides,
    sometimes the cursor froze for a couple of seconds, sometimes the Finder
    menus took a second to pull down instead of beeing immediate, seemingly
    more often with than without HP software, but this appeared to be fixed by
    the PPC interrupt fix extension.
    
    I don't see anything like this with the GX option, and provided that I
    could find the GX driver for my fax, I'll be really happy with that
    solution.
    
    The 5MP or 6MP are printers I'll consider for my parents use.  $900
    is a fair price (provided that it is not doubled in France as it is
    sometimes...)   Thanks for the hint! 
    
    BTW, how many pages can you get out of 1 toner cartridge with the 5MP?
    The B&W cartridge of the 660C ($40, french price...) will print about
    150 pages only!  It seems that the toner catridge for HP laser printers
    is princed about $100 locally; but usually laser printouts end up to be
    much cheaper than inkjet, isn't it?
    
    	-- Olivier.
    
    

    
    My 5MP has a current page count of 3758. I'm still on the original
    toner cartridge. The print is still very nice and blacks are black. In
    my experience though when the cartridge on a laser printer goes, it
    goes very suddenly so I have no idea how many copies are left.
    
    If I can get 3758 so far out of one cartridge and you get 150 on the
    660C (which is about the same as I get on my 550C) then to print out
    this many pages on the 660C I'd have had to replace the cartridge 25
    times. At a cost of $40 per cartridge that's a total of $1000. Not much
    of a savings in the long run is it? But then again, I can't do color on
    the laser printer.
    
    I purchased the 550C for color, I only use it once in a while, my son
    uses it a lot more. To date I've replace the cartridges in it 3 times
    and it currently needs both cartridges replaces, but I haven't gotten
    around to it. They seem to dry up from lack of use more than run out in
    my case. I think I've spent more on ink than I did for the printer.
    
    Mario

.11 -

	...I think I've spent more on ink than I did for the printer.
    
	Mario

There was a long article in the Wall Street Journal last August about this.
Seems that HP and their ilk dropped prices on printing hardware in order to
stimulate sales in the "consumables", which have a high markup and are very,
VERY profitable.

    >    My 5MP has a current page count of 3758. I'm still on the original
    >    toner cartridge. The print is still very nice and blacks are black.
    
    WOW!!!  I'll get one right away ;-)
    
    Thanks...
    
    	-- Ol.
    

>     <<< Note 44.411 by CSC32::M_HERODOTUS "Mario at CXO3/B10 Colorado" >>>
>                  -< Color: Ink Jet, Cost Effective: Laser  >-
>
>    
>    My 5MP has a current page count of 3758. I'm still on the original
>    toner cartridge. The print is still very nice and blacks are black. In
>    my experience though when the cartridge on a laser printer goes, it
>    goes very suddenly so I have no idea how many copies are left.

If your pages are mostly normal text with occasional line art and limited
full page images, I'd guess that you're about halfway or a bit more through 
the life of the print cartridge.  Most laser printer engines target toner
life at between 6,000 and 10,000 pages.  Larger printers can aim for
15,000.  The 5MP is based on one of the smaller engines, as I recall,
so your expected cartridge lifetime might be lower.

As for toner out mode, engines vary.
Most will give you some front panel display indication of "toner low"
before image quality degrades.
When image quality does degrade, it can be gradual or sudden.
My observation is that it usually starts with faded vertical stripes
down the page where toner has been unevenly distributed.
Take the cartridge out, shake it back and forth gently, put it back in,
and you may be good for a few dozen to a few hundred more pages.
I let it go until I need a good quality copy before I change the cartridge,
and sometimes save the old cartridge to put back in if I need to do a lot
of draft printing.  I'm cheap.

- tom] (Digital laser printer development)

    
    I should have explained, my printing is about 60 percent text only
    pages and about 35% text and graphics, the graphics are usually small
    and they are shaded images, and about 5% full page images from a
    scanner. On occassion my son will accidently print from Kid Pix to the
    laser printer instead of the inkjet, but that's rare.
    
    The cartridge shaking bit used to work great on my previous printer, a
    QMS PS-410. I'd get about 100 more pages the first shake and 50 or so
    the second shake...after that it really needed to be replaced. I
    haven't had to to that on the 5MP yet, so I can't report on that. BTW,
    I averaged 3500 pages per cartridge on the QMS printer. This one has
    gone over that already.
    
    Mario