Subject: SUMMARY: Color Printers

From: [email-masked] (M. Nicklaus)
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 95 11:37:22 -0400

Dear CCL'ers,

This is the summary of the responses I received to my question
on color printers I asked a few weeks ago.  My question as well
as the answers have been slightly edited for the sake of brevity.

I had hoped to receive experience reports on some of the newer
high-end printers such as the Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600 PS,
DEC Colorwriter 1000, Fargo Primera Pro, HP Color LaserJet,
QMS magicolor LX, Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF, the
Tektronix Phaser models 240, 340, 440, 480, 540, and others; but
presumably these are just too new to have been purchased by 
many groups as of now.

Thanks to all who responded.

Marc C. Nicklaus

======================================================================

QUESTION:
=========
(asked on June 12, 1995)

We are looking at buying a new color printer for our molecular modeling group.
We are interested in a printer that can produce publication-quality output,
such as color figures to be included in manuscripts, or color overhead 
transparencies.  The capability to print on plain paper would be nice but is
not a necessity.  The printer is going to be hooked up to a SG workstation.

Since quite a number of new color printers have been put on the market by 
various manufacturers in the recent past, we'd like to ask everyone about 
their experiences with especially this new crop of machines, and what you
think is the best color printer available at this time for printing, e.g.,
complex protein structures and the like.

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ANSWERS:
========

From: [email-masked] (Peter Shenkin)

We recently purchased a Tektronix Phaser 140, which is their lowest-
cost model -- ca. $1500, with extra RAM.  It's a 4-color inkjet, and 
can print on plain paper, two special coated papers they sell, or 
transparencies they sell.  It's got serial, AppleTalk and parallel 
ports (I think Ethernet costs extra, but not certain), and is a 
PostScript printer.  You can feed simultaneous input into all ports, 
and it will do its own spooling.

Summary:  we've had it maybe six months, and we love it.  The
blank transparancies are expensive, as are the coated papers.  I
like the less expensive coated paper (non-glossy) best;  copies
come out much better than on plain Xerox paper, I guess because the
ink doesn't soak in as much, but sits closer to the surface.
I think the print quality is really excellent.

If we printed color pages more frequently we'd want a faster and 
more expensive machine, but this one is great for the 10 pages
a week or so we use it for.  It's been very reliable;  changing
the ink cartridges is easy and not messy, and we've never had
problems of any sort, except bringing the machine up the first
day we got it.  (It turned out our third-party supplier had 
plugged the add-on RAM into the wrong slot.)

Peter S. Shenkin, Box 768 Havemeyer Hall, Chemistry, Columbia Univ.,*
New York, NY  10027;     [email-masked];     (212) 854-5143  *

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From: [email-masked] (thymallus)

In my opinion The Stylus Color" (720dpi) from Epson is one of the best
printer for molecular modeling printing, price/quality unbeatable for a
inkjet printer  equivalent to a laser printer !!. The quality is incredible
but there is only one drawback : the Stylus Color is slow.

MOURON LUDOVIC
Laboratoire d'informatique
11, rue Pierre et Marie Curie 
75231 PARIS CEDEX 05
fax 33 1 43 25 79 75 
Tel : 33 1 44 27 67 27 
[email-masked]

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From: "McDaniel, Joe" <[email-masked]>

For $350 the Canon BJC-4000 is great.  For about $530, the EPSON Stylus   
COLOR can do 720 dpi on special paper.  The HP 660C (about the same   
price) is also very good.  After that, I understand the Tektronix printer   
for about $5000 using solid wax is the next step up the scale.  After   
that, figure about $9000+ or so for the high end laser systems  and the   
wide (40") poster makers.

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From: Jim Gano <[email-masked]>

    My experience at this point is that the older thermal wax printers
are past technology.  We have one and I do not use it.  For one thing,
the wax can transfer off.  The Kinkgos does a really nice job
but their printer is very expensive.  Dye sublimation seems to be
just coming into its own.  'Very expensive for materials.  

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From: [email-masked]

You might want to direct your query to Paul Chung at NASA
Ames ([email-masked]) - this is a site that spends
a fair bit of time on color printer evaluation & selection.
Since they are in aerodynamics, they don't get chemistry
mailings.

Bill Ross

{I did that, however never got a reply.  M.N.]

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From: Jie Yuan <[email-masked]>

We have had our ESC (Epson Stylus Color) for more than 3 months and
we are very happy with it.  The ESC has 720x720 dpi cmyk ability,
costs $496 at local CompUSA store, can be used on Mac on the
serial line, or PC/SGI/etc on the parallel line.  If you have Irix 
5.x, and the Impressario server software, you can use the ESC
driver written by Paul ??? (forgot his last name) of SGI to handle
many graphic formats, including PS, GIF, TIFF, RGB, and
render in 180, 360 or 720 dpi, mono or cmyk.  The default for SGI
is to use the parallel port, mainly for speed.  Transmitting the 
cmyk data of a full page takes very long time over serial line
(over 0.5 hour)!  There is no ethernet support for this printer,
although there is an option of AppleTalk (~$140), which is still
way too slow.  So far, parallel is the best way to go.  Epson
has announced a release of new driver software for the Macintosh
which may become available in the middle of July 1995.  For SGI
users with Impressario, the ESC drive is available via anon ftp
or WWW, and it is free and supported by the author at SGI.

I have read some postings in the comp.sys.mac.printing group on
the internet that talked about HP 850c, available only in European
countries for now.  I would expect it to arrive in the US market
pretty soon at about $650.  It is a 600x600 dpi printer, and is
supposedly faster than the ESC.  I wish someone would write a 
driver software for this printer for SGI platform.  I am not
sure if HP has a driver for SGI but I doubt very much.

I have seen the print out from HP 650c, 550c, 560c, 1200c.  None
of them is as good as ESC, plus they are not waterproof no matter
how long you have dried them.  ESC print outs are waterproof
after a few hours of drying.

The brightness of the print out on plain paper by the HP printers is 
almost always a bit higher than ESC's.  However, the ESC prints very 
bright figures on transparencies and coated papers, expecially in
720 dpi mode.

HP 1200s/ps is postscript and networkable.  I am not sure if
it can be put on ethernet.  It is a 300x300 dpi printer.  It is
not worth considering if you care about the resolution of the
figures, IMHO.  It is not cheap ($1800?).  Without PS, it costs
more than $1000 and is a waste of money compared with 550c 
($300?), or the like from HP.

In the comp.sys.sgi.* groups, I saw postings of ESC users on, of
course, SGI machines.  Speed was good, thanks to the parallel
ports.  Picture quality was unparalleled by any inkjets, and 
beats many dye/wax sub. printers.

Jie Yuan, PhD - Pharmacology & Cell Biophysics - U. Cincinnati --
Phone: 513-558-2352 -- Fax: x-1169 --  Email: [email-masked]  --
P.O. Box 670575, 231 Bethesda Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45267-0575  --

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From: [email-masked]

We are very pleased with the results of the Tektronix Phaser II series printers,
however, the cost per page is a little steep.

matt
thomas j lipton

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From: "Anita Zvaigzne" <[email-masked]>

      I am not an expert, but I have been looking into color printers 
also.  One of my computer science & engineering friends recommended 
that I look into purchasing a bubble jet color printer; he felt 
that the resolution was far better with the bubble jet printers than 
the other color printers on the market.

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From: "Dimitris Agrafiotis" <[email-masked]>

The Tektronix Phaser III color postscript printer produces images of
astonishing quality. Prints are expensive, but you can understand why
when you see them. It does not print on plain paper from what I remember.

Dimitris K. Agrafiotis, PhD             | e-mail: [email-masked]
3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals, Inc.     | tel:    (610) 458-6045
665 Stockton Drive, Suite 104           | fax:    (610) 458-8249
Exton, PA 19341

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From: [email-masked]

We have been using Phaser220i from Tek... for sometime now..
Its gives really good print out..compared to various other
color printers we have used in past..

To hook up thru SGI's you would require Software -Impressario
and the driver for the printer...for a good quality printout..

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From: [email-masked]

We currently use a 4 year old Tektronic Phaser III plain paper printer 
which also supports large format, 11x17, printouts which we find 
particularly handy for "posters".  It also has a low per-print cost and is 
reasonably fast.  The matte finish of the porintout is also appealing but 
give transparancies a washed-out or somewhat muted and muddy apearance, 
e.g., yellow looks like mustard.  You can minimize this shortcoming by 
judiciously selecting your colors or use the optional Tektronix laminator 
which costs about $1000 and gives very nice glassy colors but adds about 
$0.75 to each overhead.  

I have no experience with the latest crop of printers but common 
puiblications such as Byte, PC Magazine and Mac User carry annual reviews 
and ratings.  You can probably, but not positively, use just about any 
color PostScript printer.  But be sure you can return it if it can't be 
used with your workstation.  Dye sublimation printers probably still give 
better results but the new crop of 600x600 color printers are close in 
performance and often faster.

Networked printers on SGI systems  will probably require Impressario for 
which, I beieve, there's an extra charge.  You may be able to use print 
driver supplied with Impressario, such as generic PostScript which doesn't 
support color, or you may have to get an Impressario compatible print 
driver from the printer supplier.  Unlike PC's and Macs, suppliers may 
charge quite a bit extra, as much as $1000, for a UNIX print driver and 
Tektronix does.  We got burned 2 years ago when we updated the SGI O/S 
since the printer software under Irix 4.x no longer worked under Irix 5.x, 
so we had to get both Impressario and the new Tektronix printer software!

Overall, you're best bet is to work with a supplier who has experience with 
your system and configuration.  They should be able to provide examples of 
printed output and transparencies which you can compare for final 
selection.  You may also be able to provide them with your won image, such 
as an SGI Showcase file or snapshot, which they should print out.

Lastly, the size of the files sent to the printer makes a serial printer 
connection impractical.  So make sure you get a printer which supports a 
parallel connection or which can be set up as network addressable, which is 
a bit more complicated.

Comments are those of the author and not Unilever Research U. S.      |
                                                                      |
Karl F. Moschner, Ph. D.                                              | 
                                                                      | 
Unilever Research U. S.      e-mail: [email-masked] | 
45 River Road                Phone:  (201) 943-7100 x2629             | 
Edgewater, NJ 07020          FAX:    (201) 943-5653                   | 

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From: shawn feaster <[email-masked]>

We have an SG workstation that is connected to an HP1200C color printer
outfitted with 12 MB onboard RAM.  The output is good on plain bond paper,
but the quality is dramatically increased with HP's clay/high quality
paper.  The cost per print on clay paper is ~$1.50 per page.  You can also
print onto HP's transparency media.  The cost of the printer 4 years ago
was ~$1500.00 (which included an academic discount).  Now, I know that you
can get the printer (without the additional RAM) for ~$800.00 at your
local electronics discount shop.  If you want better quality than an
inkjet can produce, then you should look into dye sublimation printers
(prices start ~$8000.00).  The cost per page will run you between $4 and
$5.  If you interested you should contact Tektronixs. 

Shawn Feaster
Image Analysis Facility
Molecular Modeling Consultant
University of Iowa
[email-masked]

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From: Pettersson Ingrid <[email-masked]>

We have two differetn color printers. The first one we bought was a 
Textronix Phaser III. This one prints on ordinary paper and overhead.
But you have to laminate the overheads before you use them. We are not
completely happy with this printer. You can see trace from the printer
head and the printer also need some maintanance. The other printer we
have is Kodak ColorEase PS Printer. This printer needs special papers
and overhead films.  But, the result from this printer is very nice.
And so far it has not needed much maintanance.

Ingrid Pettersson
Dep. of Medicinal Chemistry
Astra Draco AB
Sweden

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From: "Dr. Heinz Poehlmann" <[email-masked]>

we have made good experiences with Kodak's Color Ease colour printer.
It prints on A4 paper and transparancies, with very high (almost
photorealistic) quality, but is fairly expensive.  Also the prints
are not cheap.  But it's reliable and works fine, even with huge
postscript files.  It is connected to a SGI Indigo and can be used
with the lp (SYS V) and lpr (BSD) printer commands, also from remote
machines.

Dr. Heinz W. Poehlmann                     Regionales Rechenzentrum     |
Manager Applications Department            der Universitaet Stuttgart   |
Computational Chemistry Support            (University Computer Center) |
phone:   (49)-711-685-5992                 Allmandring 30               |
fax:     (49)-711-6787626                  D-70550 Stuttgart            |
e-mail:  [email-masked]    Germany                      |

======================================================================

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Marc C. Nicklaus                        Lab. of Medicinal Chemistry
 e-mail: [email-masked]               National Cancer Institute, NIH
 Phone:  (301) 402-3111                  Bldg 37, Rm 5B29
 Fax:    (301) 496-5839                  BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255
------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Craig Taverner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 19:17:59 +0200 (GMT+0200)

> presumably these are just too new to have been purchased by 

I hope I'm not too late to comment:

We've just bought a tektronix 220e (must the same thing as the 240), but 
did quite a bit of looking around before buying and the impressions I got 
of some of the others were:
 - the non-postscript inkjets are producing some stunning quality stuff 
(epson stylus, hp850c, etc.) but are extremely slow, and require special 
drivers (a bit inconvenient under unix - linux in my case), not being 
postscript.
 - the dye sublimation printers give unbelievable quality output, but the 
price per print is exhorbitant, although some printers are not all that 
expensive to buy (Fargo Primera, NEC ???).  The price per page put us 
off, as well as the need for specialized drivers for the cheaper printers.
 - thermal wax.  The print quality is pretty good, and the price per page 
is not bad (compared to dye sub.) running at ~$1.  Print speed for normal 
postscript jobs can be reasonable (tektronix 220e runs at up to 2 ppm), 
but some complex jobs can take much longer (I had one take over half an 
hour).  Pretty reasonable all round.  Price per page is not dependant on 
amount of colour or ink used, so it's best for pages with a lot of colour.
 - solid ink.  Better quality than thermal wax, but equivalently more 
expensive.
 - colour lasers.  The quality of the cheaper versions didn't seem any 
better that thermal wax, although the more expensive ones certainly were 
a lot better.  We were put off by the price.

So at the end of the day we got a tektronix thermal wax, and so far it's 
done things to both delight and disappoint us.  The high res mode gives 
excellent print quality, and we've been able to print from both windows 
and unix through the network and parallel port.

Cheers, Craig

Craig Taverner
Structural Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa