quality printing is getting cheaper

The typical price of a laser printer ended up falling below $2,000, making the device within the reach of people and small businesses who lack a huge budget but need very high quality printing.
Even the new laser printer can be used with the old one.
Older computers that use CP/M operating system software and still get the same high quality.
The laser printer is a close relative of the office copier.
These characters are not ink, but are fused with the page in hot condition with black toner.
The copier works basically the same way.
The difference is that the copier uses the camera lens to transmit the image, and the laser printer uses a laser beam guided by a computer instruction.
The result is fast printing, usually quiet, and the ability to mix detailed graphics and letters together
Quality types of various sizes, shapes and styles on the page.
The downside is that the computer software needed to make the laser printer work is much more complicated than the computer software needed to drive a simple point matrix printer or letter
High quality daisywheel printer.
Buying laser printers can be confusing because they are very different. One major--
And very expensive. -
The difference is whether the laser printer is equipped with internal memory and a programming language equipped with PostScript, which is a language that determines the appearance of the printed page and has become the highest standard --
Quality desktop release.
Hewlett-Packard dominates the market because printers equipped with PostScript are complex machines and manufacturers have to pay expensive licensing fees to provide postscript, so the price of these printers is at 4,000.
Apple Macintosh needs a postscript to get the best done, and Apple sells a PostScript printer, LaserWriter, with a suggested retail price of $4,400.
But for other computers, including IBM and compatible machines
For typical business reports and letters, it\'s good to remember the printer behind. Hewlett-
Packard in Africa
In the postscript market, its continuous model of laser printers sets the standard in this field.
The latest is the LaserJet II.
Therefore, software publishers should be careful to ensure that their programs work with HP
Packard laser printers, sometimes ignoring laser printers from other manufacturers.
Therefore, it is important to buy a laser printer that can imitate HP.
Packard model to ensure you have the widest possible range of software compatibility. (
Many programs written before the laser printer appears are not working properly, so buying a new printer may also mean buying new software. )
Although HP LaserJet II recommends a retail price of $1,800, it costs $2,595 or less, and the printers of competing manufacturers need to be sold at a lower price than HP and offer more features, make it worth your consideration.
The two that compete for your attention are the dominant dot matrix printer manufacturers Epson and C.
Itoh, offers a range of respected printers over the years.
Epson\'s GQ 3500 is less than $1,400 (
Suggested retail price of $2,199)
Smaller and lighter than the LaserJet II.
It is equipped with an accessory that can make it work like a whirlpool laser printer or you can use it in standard mode so that it can be used to drive the Epson point matrix qr-Series printers.
Epson can also work with older software that does not provide complex printing capabilities.
I found this printer easy to use, quiet and attractive built inin type styles.
Other types of fonts can be used when installing pluginsin cartridges.
Basic 640,000 characters (640 kilobytes)
Operational memory can be extended to 1.
5 million characters (1. 5 megabytes)
To accommodate large images on the page. The C. Itoh Jet-
The suggested retail price for Setter is $1,795 and has been in short supply, only about $100 off.
It\'s a bigger and heavier printer than Epson or the latest HP.
Very noisy, too.
You know a lot of things are turning inside when printing.
But it\'s designed to be the same as HP LaserJet, so you just plug it in and print it using any software designed to drive HP.
You can also use a jet.
Setter using the old software that doesn\'t run the laser printer, although this requires some experiments, you may not be able to control the top and bottom margins and the number of rows printed on the page.
A little different-
In terms of font selection, font selection is more limited compared to Epson, but additional font cartridges can be added.
For printing large graphics, Jet-
Setter can be extended to a full two megabytes of memory.
512 K memory standard.
Apart from the difference in font selection between the two printers, I can\'t see any difference in print quality.
Both are superior to daisywheel printing and are faster and quieter.
According to the manufacturer, Jets
Setter prints five pages per minute;
\"GQ 3500, six, HP LaserJet II, eight. You can call C. Itoh at (800)423-
The name of your nearest dealer is 0300, while Epson can be in (800)421-5426.
Although most of these laser printers will be purchased to work with IBM and compatible PCs, you can also connect them to older CP/M computers such as Kaypro and ossorne port
In fact, Ben Jone, owner of the New York computer editing system, was surprised to find that the laser printer connected to the old CP/M machine was running about three times faster than connecting to the new ibm pc xt.
Jone wrote the MagicSeries software.
It is suitable for the point matrix and MS-from laser to daisywheel-
A dos or CP/M computer.
MagicSeries enhances old printing capabilities
Old-fashioned word handlers like the earlier version of WordStar.
It can control the position of the character on the laser
Print pages within 1/720.
It also creates weights of six boldface types and mixes different type styles and sizes within one word while maintaining a completely uniform right edge.
Jone attributes the extra performance of CP/M to the simplicity of the old Z-80 eight-
More efficient computers for bit processors and machinesto-
Printer communication.
His advice to anyone who plans to dump old CP/M computers for a new PC or compatible computer to gain the advantage of laser printing is to think twice. Call him at (212)222-
8148 if you want to know more.
He can even tell you where to buy a new CP/M computer to use your new laser printer, which I think is impossible these days.
The reader\'s comments are welcome for computer files, but regret that the author cannot reply to the letter alone.
Write to Richard O\'Reilly, Los Angeles Times Square computer archive, Los Angeles, California. 90053.