Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!mlawless
From: mlawless@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM (Mike Lawless)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: LaserJet II: Soft vs Hard Fonts
Message-ID: <5489@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM>
Date: 9 Aug 89 18:25:16 GMT
References: <5130001@vantage.UUCP>
Reply-To: mlawless@ncrwic.UUCP (Mike Lawless)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, KS
Lines: 30

In article <5130001@vantage.UUCP> ray@vantage.UUCP (Ray Liere) writes:
>IT SEEMS TO ME that, rather than buying more memory, I would be better off
>buying one or two of the "super font cartridges" that have appeared on the
>market recently. 
>Most of these super cartridges claim to be 100% compatible with the HP
>ones -- just more fonts in each cartridge. So ... if the software I use now
>handles HP cartridges, then it seems to me that it should handle the super
>cartridges as well.

I would be careful if I were you.  I called Microsoft with some questions
about such super cartridges.  I had noticed that Windows (and applications
running under Windows) has a LaserJet driver that only knows about true HP
font cartridges.  They told me that I could use a super cartridge as long as
I accepted the limitation of only being able to use the subset of fonts found
in any one or two standard HP fonts at one time.  Also, I seem to recall that
most of the fonts are supported in ASCII only, and not the HP Roman-8 extended
character set.  There may be other limitations as well.  Another poster noted
that PDS apparently supplies drivers for popular software packages with the
cartridge, but which ones I have no idea; is a Windows driver included, and
if so, does it support everything else the standard LaserJet driver does
correctly, including downloading of soft fonts?  What about a driver for
Microsoft Word (although in this case it is possible to create your own
driver, as long as you know what you are doing and have infinite patience.).
If anyone out there actually has one of these gadgets, could you please share
your comments with the net on these issues.
-- 
Mike Lawless, NCR E&M Wichita, Box 20     (316) 636-8666   (NCR: 654-8666)
3718 N. Rock Road, Wichita, KS  67226     Mike.Lawless@Wichita.NCR.COM
{ece-csc,hubcap,gould,rtech}!ncrcae!ncrwic!Mike.Lawless
{sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!Mike.Lawless