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PACIFIC.DOC
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1989-10-05
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INTRODUCTION
The following "first impression" was written by my wife,
Elizabeth Johnston, regarding the brand new PacificPage
cartridge for the HP LJII. Any questions or comments should
be addressed to her, c/o Baton Rouge PC User Group, P.O. Box
16393, Baton Rouge, LA 70893. This file is provided courtesy
of the BRPCUG.
---John Johnston, President, BRPCUG
First Impressions of PacificPage
Postscript Language Emulation Cartridge
Elizabeth Johnston
I received a PacificPage cartridge (from Pacific Data Products)
Friday 9/22 and have played with it for just a few hours. I have used
the demo program that came with it to print some images, then used
it with WordPerfect 5.0 and CorelDraw!. I have not had time to
compare the output with that from true Postscript printers, but it
is possible that the PacificPage output may not be quite as good.
However, I also think it is likely that careful examination of the
output will be needed to detect those differences. In any case,
those people to whom perfect PostScript output is a necessity
probably already have a PostScript printer. The PacificPage
cartridge provides PostScript output for the rest of us (Oops!
Isn't that an old Apple slogan...)
To use this cartridge, you must have a Hewlett Packard LaserJet
Series II printer with at least 2.5 MB of RAM. While other Pacific
Data Products cartridges list compatibility with several Hewlett
Packard and HP-compatible printers, the documentation for this
cartridge states that it is designed only for the Series II.
Installation is a snap -- turn the printer off, insert the
cartridge (which is a bit longer than the typical cartridge) into
the left cartridge slot, and turn the printer back on. Voila! Your
LaserJet now thinks that it is an Apple LaserWriter Plus. A
diskette containing a demo program for printing several sample
pages, and two batch files for downloading the setup strings for
switching the printer between PostScript and Hewlett Packard PCL
mode is included.
A thin spiral-bound User's Manual describes the product, lists the
fonts it contains (with print samples provided in the back of the
book), details installation and setup, provides instructions for
using the cartridge, and lists error messages and trouble-shooting
information. A second small Application Setup and Printing Guide
provides specific step-by-step instructions for installing and
using a PostScript printer with several different applications
program. Programs covered are Ventura Publisher, WordPerfect 5.0,
Microsoft Word 5.0, Microsoft Windows, and Aldus PageMaker.
The PacificPage cartridge takes over the printer's operation when
it is in use. The printer comes up in PostScript mode when it is
turned on. To switch to standard HP PCL mode, you simply type PCL
at the DOS prompt. To switch back to PostScript, you type PS. You
can tell which mode the printer is in by looking at the LCD
display; if "PacificPage" is displayed, the printer is in
PostScript mode, while the usual "Ready" message appears if the
printer is in HP mode.
To use the printer as a PostScript printer, you just setup your
applications software to use an Apple LaserWriter Plus/IINT/IINTX
or other PostScript printer. Make sure that if your printer is
attached to the parallel port, you specify that output is to be
directed to the parallel port. Some software does not support
parallel output to PostScript printers, so the documentation
describes redirecting output from the serial port to the parallel
port.
Once you have installed the PostScript printer driver for your
software and your printer claims that it is a PostScript printer
("PacificPage" is displayed in the LCD display on the printer), you
are ready to go.
As with any Postscript printer, output is slow, especially compared
to your stock LaserJet speed. However, with WordPerfect, it is not
unbearably slow -- a minute or less (usually somewhat less) a page
for standard text. The same cannot be said for CorelDraw output
(which I suspect would also be slow on a Postscript printer). I
waited about 45 minutes for some text with special Postscript
effects and finally gave up. The sample batch I produced earlier
did have the bubbles background I requested, but it took minutes
(15, 20, more?) to print. I will experiment more with CorelDraw!
later. I suspect that I will be able to access the PostScript
effects through CorelDraw!, but that will be the acid test for me.
Since I don't need PostScript often, I am willing to wait for the
output. I'll just have to let one computer do CorelDraw! and use
the other one for (non-printing) activities.
(Later: I printed a CorelDraw! file which was two lines of 72 pt.
Bangkok (Benguait) text (Johnston/9:30-10:30 MW) using one of the
PostScript fill patterns. The output was lovely, but it took
between 2 and 3 hours to print. The time descreased to a little
less than an hour when I blocked off the text and specified that
only the marked area was to be printed, and was less still when I
went to a non-Postscript effect. Too slow for heavy use, but
acceptable for sporadic use. Also, after trying to download fonts
serially to an Apple LaserWriter today, I do not know how anyone
tolerates that slow speed. Given the snail-pace of serial
transmission, I am not sure that the PostScript cartridge is that
much slower than the real thing!)
The output quality from WordPerfect is good, although some of the
really large letters are a bit jagged (capital T, B, and P in the
Palatino face in 60 pt or so). The regular text-sized letters are
nice, though. I have experimented briefly with using large letters
in a text box. I used a 30% grey background and got white letters,
outlined letters, and black letters to print beautifully. I also
rotated the text 90%.
Switching between the two modes from within WordPerfect is as
simple as:
[Ctrl]-[F1] (Shell)
1 Go to DOS
At the DOS prompt, type the appropriate batch file (PS or PCL) At
the next DOS prompt, type EXIT the press [Enter]
[Shift]-[F7] (Printer)
Select Printer, then select the appropriate printer driver
At the printer menu, Initialize
That's all there is to it. You can switch back and forth during one
work session with very little effort. Unfortunately, I haven't had
time yet to figure out if there is a way to use a macro for this
(the exit to DOS is a problem). Simply recording the keystrokes
does not work because of the temporary DOS exit (which works) and
the subsequent batch file command and return to WP (which does not
work). Will have to drag out the WP documentation to see if there
is a way to do this.
The cartridge comes with Courier, Dutch 801 (Times Roman), Swiss
721 (Helvetica), Swiss 721 Narrow (Helvetica Narrow), Geometric 711
ITC Avant Grade Gothic, Revival 711 ITC Bookman, Century 702
Century Schoolbook, and Zapf Calligraphic 801 (Palatino) in normal,
bold, italic, and bold italic versions. It also has Chancery 801
ITC Zapf Chancery (a medium italic font), ITC Zapf Dingbats, and
a symbol set. These are Bitstream's versions of the standard fonts
that come on the Apple LaserWriter Plus, etc.
Unfortunately, the stock WordPerfect Apple LaserWriter driver on
printer disk 2 does not support those cute little dingbats. I
guess it's time to drag out the old credit card and ask WPC to send
me that disk. (Later: WP Corp. has a utility called COPYFONT or
some such that should allow me to copy the dingbat information from
disk 6 to my current driver. You can get up to 5 diskettes for the
$10 handling fee.)
I also generated PostScript versions of Bitstream's Zapf Humanist
(Optima) and ITC Korinna using Fontware 3.0. I have been using the
standard LaserJet versions with WP, and strongly prefer the PCL
versions to the PS versions. Unfortunately, the PS versions seem
to be the same boldness as the bold PCL versions. In other words,
the PS versions seem to be bold and extra bold, rather than regular
and bold. Don't know if this is a PostScript, Bitstream, or
PacificPage problem, but will do some checking.
So far, I am happy to have the cartridge, although I haven't had
time to explore it thoroughly yet. I don't have a lot of need for
PostScript output, but at least I can get it if I want it. For a
total cost of about $650 ($100 for the additional 1 MB of RAM I had
to add to the 1.5 MB I already had, plus $545 for the cartridge),
I now have access to both worlds. It is really nice to switch
between the two with a simple two- or three-letter batch file
command. I also like the fact that I can move this cartridge from
one printer to another (I use a laptop computer and have a laser
at home and one in my office, in addition to the two others that
my department has). Given all possible PostScript retrofits
(software emulation, hardware modifications, etc.), this seems to
offer reasonable price, flexibility, and simplicity. It is not the
least expensive, but I suspect that the convenience it offers far
offsets the higher cost over some of the software alternatives. And
it is considerably less expensive than some of the hardware
alternatives (although perhaps not as fast).
I got my cartridge from DH Systems, Inc., 1940 Cotner Ave., Los
Angeles, CA 90025. (213) 479-4477 or (800) 747-HPLJ. Their price
for the $695 list price cartridge is $545, and I paid $8 for UPS
Blue Shipping. I ordered the cartridge as soon as I read that it
would be available, and the nice folks at DH Systems called me
Tuesday evening to tell me they had received their initial shipment
and my cartridge would be shipped Wednesday. They had originally
told me that the cartridge would cost about $575, so I was
pleasantly surprised when it cost somewhat less. I bought a Pacific
Data Products 1-2-4 Upgradeable Memory Board from DH Systems
several months ago and have nothing but good things to say about
their prices and service.
A funny aside -- Microsoft Windows (required to run CorelDraw!)
refuses to allow me to have both an HP LJ II and an Apple
LaserWriter attached to LPT1: (I guess it never occurred to
Microsoft that some people might have two devices attached to a
single port through a switchbox, much less that a single device
might be able to act like to different creatures.). Oh, well. I'll
just have to setup a printer each time.
Another aside: I had no luck at all using Bitstream Postscript
fonts on an Apple LaserWriter Plus, so I have no way of determining
the cause of the "bold" output I get with the Postscript version
of the fonts.