From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Aug 12 20:14:45 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freeze.org (www.stelesys.com [208.177.187.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFCBD37B409 for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:14:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jim@freeze.org) Received: (from jim@localhost) by freeze.org (8.11.3/8.11.2) id f7D3GPU14664; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 23:16:25 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from jim) X-Authentication-Warning: www.stelesys.com: Processed from queue /var/spool/alt_queue X-Authentication-Warning: www.stelesys.com: Processed by jim with -C /web/siteinfo/freeze/mail/sendmail.cf Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 23:13:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Freeze X-X-Sender: To: Mike Porter Cc: John Merryweather Cooper , Mike Meyer , Subject: Re: What is the magical incantation necessary to print to /dev/ulpt0 In-Reply-To: <024201c12390$27a0d8c0$0300a8c0@laptop> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Mike Porter wrote: > > products. I *am* still curious as to the real cost/performance benefit of > using the host rather than a hardware renderer; it would seem to me that > there is more data to transfer, and over a relatively slow interface like > the parallel port, it would seem to me to be terribly expensive from a > time/CPU time perspective. Of course, my logic could be faulty, or my Yes, there is more data to transfer, but USB has helped solve this problem. But regardless of speed, the consumer looks only at one thing. $$$. It costs money to put hardware in the printer. And when all (well, from marketing's perspective) your customers already have a printer running windows, then why not use the computer and make the printer cheaper. In the all the current Zxx series, the host driver performs all the half-toning and shingling of the data. The printers actually have hardware 'rotater' code that formats the data for the printhead. In the upcoming release, this 'rotation' will be done in the host computer. This saves alot of chip real estate since the new printer has larger more complicated printheads. Jim ========================================================= Jim Freeze jim@freeze.org --------------------------------------------------------- No comment at this time. http://www.freeze.org ========================================================= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message