Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 16:24:17 -0500 (CDT) From: Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us> To: Scott Mitchell <s.mitchell@computer.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-users@uk.freebsd.org Subject: Re: HP printers & FreeBSD? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910041603410.32651-100000@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us> In-Reply-To: <19991004164348.B360@lungfish.freeserve.co.uk>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Scott Mitchell wrote: > Having given in to my SO's nagging and decided to buy a new printer, my > next task is to make sure it works with our favourite OS before handing > over the cash... The printer in question will probably be from HP simply > because I've never owned/used one that gave me any trouble, whereas the > same cannot be said for certain others :-( Anyway, looking through the > specs for the current crop of Deskjets, many of them apparently use > something called 'Printing Performance Architecture' -- these also seem to > be the models that don't even offer Mac support, so I assume the 'Printing > Performance Architecture' is some kind of poxy WinPrinter thing that is > best avoided. The rest of the range talks PCL Level 3 which I believe is > fine for tools such as GhostScript et. al. > > Any confirmation that these are valid assumptions would be appreciated. > Please cc: to me as I'm not subscribed to -questions these days. From my own experience, your assumptions are definately valid. I've never figured out HP's screwy model numbering system, but at one time I thought that anything with an odd second number was not a WinPrinter. However, a few even-numbered printers are not WinPrinters, so that blew that idea out the window. I'm not entirely sure why they think they need to have 200 different models of printers to choose from, either, with seemingly no differences between one model and the next. Enough ranting... I have an 870Cse at home, and it works wonderfully. Here at work, I have an 895Cse sitting in the corner attached to a JetDirect box, and it basically just has better output than my 870 and is a tad speedier. Just about anything in the 8xx series of printers should work nicely and have great print output. Some of the lower series printers still do speak PCL, but their print output and speed isn't nearly as good. You'd better check HP's website and look at the specs of the printer you want to make real it at least speaks PCL. Anything that only speaks "Printing Performance Architecture" is definately a lowly WinPrinter. We got stuck with a couple of those and didn't realize it until we couldn't print from one of our old DOS apps that only speaks PCL. -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. For Intel x86 and Alpha architectures (SPARC under development). ( http://www.freebsd.org ) "One should admire Windows users. It takes a great deal of courage to trust Windows with your data." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.10.9910041603410.32651-100000>