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PRINTERS:
This is a PostScript printer. It contains the standard 35 Adobe type fonts; 35 different Intellifont fonts, and 10 True Type fonts.
Its output is a theoretical 16 pages-per-minute, somewhat less of page layout is complex or includes a lot of graphics. It comes with 12 megs of RAM (memory chips) which you will need for fancy jobs.
This printer can be used with Macs or PC's and comes standard with an Ethernet connection too.
COLOR PRINTER: Every school must have at least one. Kids love color, and will be doing artwork, illustrating stories and other writings, maybe older ones designing T-shirts and buttons, making greeting and friendship cards, etc. Until color lasers drop in price, your school color printers will be ink-jets.
The: HP Color DeskJet 1200PS. Is a 300 dpi PostScript printer which also does good-quality B&white. Not carried by ER, but typically about $1800 street price from telephone order places like Publishing Perfection. PS couple hundred cheaper Forget it, The Notice the number 1200 and the PS after it. There is a 1200 without the PostScript version comes with 6 megs of RAM memory, the standard 35 PostScript fonts.
Unlike all the cheaper non-PS ink-jets, this printer uses 4 separate ink cartridges--CYMK. Some others have no black (K) at all which is just ugly for printouts. All the low-cost non-PS color inkjets or they have one 3 nozzle ink cartridge that holds cyan, magenta and yellow in 3 little chambers. This means you soon run out of just one of those colors and must replace the whole color cartridge (more than $30). You go through those quite fast in a student computer lab. The 1200 uses a separate cartridge for each color, so it's more economical on ink.
Connectivity: The 1200PS comes stock with IBM-type bitronics parallel connection, and an Apple LocalTalk connector, (which is in its MIO slot) although some vendors are now offering it with the HP JetDirect Ethercard in the MIO slot, which provides for the future, if you are not Ethernetworked yet in your school lab, because you surely will be.
Of course any purchasing is conditional upon your having the budget for it! So here's lower-cost alternatives.
HP 660C Color InkJet Printer About $460 at educational discount rate from the ER catalog. This printer comes in 2 models: one for Macs, one for PC's. You cannot swap the other kind of computer to it at all. The model for PC's (parallel connector) is called DeskJet 660C, for the Mac it's called DeskWriter 660C. The main differences are in the physical connector and some "internal communication" chips.
This is not a PostScript printer, but with Adobe Type Manager loaded, its output looks pretty good. This printer is not networkable without a lot of technical expertise you ae unlikely to have available.
A bit more about HP vs every other kind of printer: Buyer's guides for corporate computer and other equipment purchasers regularly review and compare all the new models of printers of every kind. This is primarily for PC printers; Macs are just not found that much in the business world, except for graphics businesses. Printer roundups in Mac periodicals are not very thorough. But in all of these review/comparisons, the reviewers are using each printer for only a short while. They pay very little attention to what are really the 3 most important printer characteristics for any multiple-user situation: (1) Paper-handling capabilities--tolerance for small slides and curls due to humitity, tolerance for user paper loading errors, and ease of unjamming when it does get jammed (every printer will sometimes). (2) Sturdiness in the parts that don't show, as well as outsides, connectors, etc. Is its rated load (output in pages-per-month) real, or will it break down if used that much? How tolerant is it of overruns of rated load? (3) Maintainability: a mixed criterion including how clearly-written the manuals are, how easy it is to change ink or toner if the manuals are lost, how easy to remove jammed paper; availability of ink or toner supplies for it; availability of parts and service; quality and availability of technical support. On every one of these "real use" characteristics that reviewers never think of but you must, HP has no competitors at all. You don't remember exactly how to change ink or toner and can't find the manual? Left the little lid--there is a perfectly clear step by step diagram how to do it. HP has always done this. Nobody else picked up on it, or there is some diagram from Mars that's worse than nothing.
Some other manufacturer's model-of-the-month may have slightly prettier output according to some reviewer's perceptions; and output speeds are constantly increasing for new models all the time. But for ease of use and maintenance in every real physical way, for quality and availability of telephone support, of on-site repair service (if you're in the service radius) and for reliability and quickness of factory repair if you must send it in, no other printer manufacturer has ever been in HP's league, and there are no signs any of them are trying to be. Or if they are, they are clueless. This includes Apple. Don't get their printers for an all-Mac lab, get HP's.
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Page prepared by Paula Giese copyright 1995
Last updated: Friday, June 30, 1995 - 1:28:12 AM