Apple's Laser Line-up - A Printer For All Platforms
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday October 10, 1994
ONCE upon a time, most Macintosh users looking for a printer made a choice between Apple's ImageWriter and LaserWriter dot-matrix and laser printers. Other manufacturers soon caught on, offering Mac versions of their printers or compatibility kits for existing models.
Apple didn't give up. Instead, it offered more features and better price-competitiveness, and worked hard to make its peripherals more attractive to "cross platform" - that is DOS/Windows - buyers.
The LaserWriter 16/600 PS is the latest addition to Apple's laser lineup.
That moniker is a bit unwieldy, but there is method to the naming madness: the 16 indicates a rated speed of 16 pages per minute (ppm), the 600 specifies 600 dots per inch (dpi) resolution, and the PS shows this is a PostScript printer. The 16/600 PS is unashamedly a work-group printer and will suit mixed or all-Mac networks. It comes with Ethernet, LocalTalk and bi-directional parallel ports, and automatically switches between ports and between PostScript Level 2 and PCL5 emulation according to the incoming data. With Ethernet, switching is also automatic between EtherTalk, NetWare and TCP/IP protocols.
Paper handling is an important consideration for work-group use. The 16/600 PS accepts 250 sheets in its main cassette, and 100 sheets or 10 envelopes in the tray. (If you've given up trying to print envelopes with an old laser printer, look at one of the newer models: things have improved.) If that's not enough, you may buy a 500-sheet feeder or a 75-envelope feeder for $725 each, and all four paper sources can be installed together.
Perhaps the most exciting feature is the fax card promised for early 1995. With this installed in the printer, you'll be able to send faxes directly from your Mac or Windows computer, and incoming faxes will be printed on plain paper. Another bonus is that images from another PostScript fax device will be printed at the full 600 dpi resolution. You can also connect to regular Group III fax machines, of course.
Like earlier Apple lasers, the new printer features FinePrint technology, to smooth the edges of text, and line graphics to improve the apparent quality. It also includes PhotoGrade to enhance the reproduction of greyscale images such as scanned photographs, but this requires a memory upgrade from the standard 8 to 12 megabytes or more.
Apple has also addressed the lower end of the market with a new 360 dpi colour inkjet printer due to ship next month. The $995 Color StyleWriter 2400 connects directly to a Macintosh and prints on plain, premium or glossy papers, as well as transparency and backprint film.
(If you haven't seen backprint film, ask a dealer to show you a sample - it produces high-gloss output that's ideal for reports and other special projects.) In order to reduce running costs, the black and coloured inks are stored in separate tanks. The inks themselves are a new type that resists fading and minimises water smudging.
Although the 2400 is really a personal printer, it can be shared across a network without having to buy extra software. The standard software also supports Apple's ColorSync for improved colour matching between the computer screen and the printed page, as well as System 7.5's QuickDraw GX. Now all you need are some applications that exploit GX's new typographical features.
Like many recently introduced printers, the 2400 meets the US Government's Energy Star guidelines, in this case by automatically switching itself on and off.
Hewlett-Packard also announced a new Mac-compatible printer, the $527 DeskWriter 320. Despite the name, this colour-capable printer is also suited to portable use. It's a little larger than an egg carton, and weighs less than 2 kilograms. The resolution is an impressive 600 by 300 dpi (300 by 300 in colour), and the ColorSmart software automatically compensates for text, graphics or pictures, even within a single page.
The colour kit (a colour ink cartridge that's interchangeable with the black one) is an extra $91, and a sheet feeder is available for $190. There's also an optional rechargeable battery.
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald
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