Laser printers for filePro on SCO Unix...

[Barry Wiseman]

Mike Schwartz wrote:
>      I have a customer who needs a fairly hefty laser printer to attach to
> the parallel port of their Unix server.  They are looking at HP 4240's,
> 4250's and 4515's and also at Lexmark T644's and W840's.
>
>      Previously, they used OTC dot-matrix printers, but now that OTC is out
> of business, they want to try a couple of laser printers and get out of the
> dot-matrix world.
> 
>      Unfortunately, even after reviewing the past emails on this subject,
> I'm still not sure how I can be certain that these printers will accept
> straight ASCII print on their parallel ports and work with the filePro
> printer drivers.  
> 
>      Here is a Lexmark page, indicating that the W540 is "HP 5e compatible":
> 
> http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/product/home/757/0,6970,204816596_653293751_4
> 91779829_en,00.html?tabId=1#top

That is one pricey printer.  Do they need the 11x17 capability?

>      However, as I recall, that doesn't mean that it is not a "windows-only"
> printer.
>

Well, when the spec sheet indicates Mac and Linux are supported, that is 
a pretty good clue it's not a braindead, er, Windows-only printer.

>      If a printer has a CUPS driver, does that mean for certain that it
> accepts straight ASCII characters through the printer port?

Since CUPS supports postscript, PDF and other specialized formats, the 
answer is probably "no".

>      It would be nice if I could get my hands on one of these printers, then
> actually plug it in and test it, but, I would have to purchase one to do
> that.  It will probably not be returnable, so I would have to "eat" it, and
> these printers all cost a lot of money!
> 
>      Or, do any of you have a suggestion for a different model of laser
> printer that will print at upwards of 40 pages per minute and print at least
> 100,000 pages a month reliably for at least a couple of years?

HP's 4200 and 4300 series printers will run you under $2000 and are 
definitely plain-ascii compatible.  At that printing volume they will 
probably need their rollers replaced during their lifespan -- this is 
field maintenance you could do your$elf, HP sells roller kits.

Whatever printer you go for, if you really need a parallel interface, 
better read the specs to make sure the printer has one -- I don't know 
how commonly this 20th-century technology is still supported. :-) If the 
printer is used for anything beyond plain ascii with simple PCL markup, 
throughput really suffers compared to USB or network interface.