Re: not-even-newbie printer question

[Peter Evans <peter@example.com>]

Jonathan Q asks lots of questions about what I want of a printer. (Sorry
not to have been clearer in my earlier posting, but I didn't want to
risk boring anyone to tears.)

> what's the most you want to spend on a printer

I'd like to get something under 50 thou, if possible, because that way I
can charge my institution for it without having to do paperwork or
(worse) being accountable for its whereabouts for 5 years thereafter.
The 50 thou doesn't have to include extras; e.g. I could pay 47,800 or
whatever for the printer and (on a different receipt) another ten thou
for extra memory.

If I'd have to spend over 50 thou, I'd probably forget it and instead
invest in a new toner cartridge for my elderly LaserJet IIIP, which I
imagine Linux would like.

> Do you need color?  Photo printing?  B&W only? 

No no and yes respectively. But color and photo printing would be good
if they didn't much increase the price of the machinery or the cost of
churning out monochrome prints.

> Postscript? Most printers are supported under Linux via
> Ghostscript. . . .

Right now in Windows [sorry!], I don't use or miss PostScript, but on
the other hand I do of course use, whossit called, TrueType. (I don't
now need PostScript for its widely acknowledged advantages over TrueType
-- for example, I don't produce 版下 that must be printed out by
somebody else and look exactly the same, though at higher resolution.) I
believe, in my mis/underinformed way, that TrueType (or the faking
thereof) is a lot dodgier in Linux than is PostScript. If I didn't have
TrueType, I'd want PostScript (wouldn't I?).  So do I need PostScript?
You tell me!

> In general, if I didn't need color printing, I'd probably
> by a budget laser printer.

Yup, that's what I was thinking.

If I wasn't worrying about Linux, I might well buy the Brother HL-1240,
http://www.brother.co.jp/direct/hl1240/frhl1240.html . This is a laser
printer with "true 600dpi", "12PPM" -- I'm dubious about such figures,
but anyway it's sure to print faster and more prettily than my ancient
HPLJ IIIP.  I don't know much about it, but see that the pages don't
(and therefore dust won't) simply drop into it, which I hope would mean
it would be a lot less troublesome than my HPLJ 5L.  And it costs just
32,000 (plus tax) -- hardly any more than HP charge for routine
maintenance of my old printer. There's no mention of PostScript, so
presumably it's not a PostScript printer. Of course, the web page
doesn't mention Linux, anythingBSD, Solaris, etc. etc. Moreover, a
supplementary page says: DOSもしくはWindows経由でのDOSアプリケーションの
印刷はできません。which I imagine means: This printer works as a
hardware accessory to Windows.

The next one up from Brother would be their network printer, the
HL-1270N, http://www.brother.co.jp/direct/hl1270n/fr1270n.html . That
would be handier as I could, in effect, leave it plugged into two (or
more) printers. Well, it's a network printer.  But I have no experience
with these -- Did I mention that I'm a total ignoramus? -- and also it's
uncomfortably over my \50,000 quasi-limit.

Could I use the 1240 with Linux? Is there a better alternative for a
"personal use" [?] laser printer? If the answers to those are "no" (or
"only with difficulty") and "not really", then: Surely I could use the
1270N (couldn't I?), but is there a cheaper alternative?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter Evans peter@example.com