Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!WSUVM1.BITNET!HEIMBIG
From: HEIMBIG@WSUVM1.BITNET (Bruce Heimbigner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: HP DeskJet
Message-ID: <8805111716.AA15635@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 May 88 17:17:56 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 52
X-Unparsable-Date: Wed, 11 May 88 08:52:46 PLT

Several people have asked about the HP DeskJet.  I ordered one for the
student lab I manage here at Washington State U. it came in last week
and has been in solid use since.  Observations:

-quality- (of output) is variable, generally better paper produces better
 results, but not necessarily, 100% cotton rag paper produces output
 indistinguishable from laserjet, but the cheapest paper we have
 is also very good, in general photocopy paper is good but some are
 better than others. The manual warns about this and suggest try before
 you buy a bunch paper.  Resolution is 300*300 and dot size is either the
 same or very similar to a laser.
 There is a draft/letter quality panel button, in draft the print head
 goes twice as fast prints half as many dots uses half as much ink,
 and looks better than any pin printer. Letter quality is laser quality.
 Remember this machine, like a laserjet, uses single sheet cut paper and
 autoloads it from am approx. 100 page compartment.

-compatibility- the deskjet is compatable with the anything that will
 run a HP laserjet or jet plus or jet II.  Lotus and MS Word (on a PC
 sorry no ST's in the lab to try out) with laserjet as the printer diver
 both worked fine.  Also the manual came with a disk with drivers for Word,
 WordPerfect, lotus 123 and Framework.  Also we bought an epson FX 80
 emulaton cartridge which works fine, hi res but with epson fonts and
 use epson printer drivers (haven't tryed graphics with the epson emulation).
 With the high degree of compatibility to hp laser jet I would not buy the
 Epson emulation cartidge.
 As far as I can tell the cartidges for the deskjet/laserjet are software
 compatible too, that is the same drivers will for a particular cartridge will
 work for either printer. However they are definately not the same physical
 cartridge (ie you cannot exchange cartridges)

-cost- list $995, $750 at the local hp dealer, on bid we got ours for $475
 from the local hp dealer. (here's a shocker this baby is manufactured in
 Vancouver WA.)

-speed- is said to be 240 draft and 120 letter quality, but it just isn't
 as snappy as HP's other printers, ie page eject is slow compared with 2934
 (tho it is considerablely faster than an epson).  About 2 page per minute in
 letter quality and 4 page per minute in draft, (compare laser 8 page/min with
 no such thing as draft).  Also there is a 16K buffer but if you send
 characters to the printer fast then the printer stops printing while it
 receives the data, this allows you to get on with your work but slows down
 the printing proccess.

Bye
 Bruce Heimbigner
Email:                    Snail mail:
 HEIMBIG@WSUVM1.bitnet      N.W. 324 True Street
OR                          Pullman WA 99163-3347 (USA)
 BIX:bheimbigner  (but I don't get on here very often)
----"It's all very well in practice,
        but in theory it just doesn't work."