HP Laserjet 1200 on USB

[Kirk Strauser]

At 2003-09-20T14:51:19Z, ian j hart <ianjhart at ntlworld.com> writes:

> Q. How much of the 5 mins is data transfer, and how much is "printer busy"
> (rendering)?
> A. Nobody knows :)

I've been going on the assumption that the server uploads the whole file,
then the printer begins to render it.  I also realize that my assumption may
be complete incorrect.

> Only when USB works will we know. We could test under Windows I suppose**

Actually, I'd say that Linux is the next effort.  I'm not so curious that
I'd put a Windows machine on my LAN just to test my printer.  :)

> Perhaps IEEE1284 support needs "tweaking".

Perhaps.  I also tried using lptcontrol to set "extended" mode, but that
didn't work at all.  Literally.  I'd print something, the light on the
printer would begin to flash, then it would stop; there were no error
messages in the CUPS logs.

> What's your data? One 20Mb graphic is different to a 20Mb "text" document.

20MB graphics.  Here's what I was doing that really brought this to light:

  1) Created a 30" x 24" 300DPI canvas in The GIMP.
  2) Generated some really large text.
  3) Used the "Resize canvas" to slice the image into 8" x 10" pages and
     printed them individually.

The page files were the 20MB files that I was referring to.  Although they
were graphic, I think they were basically bitmaps that wouldn't require too
much computation.

> As a point of reference here is what we have.
>
> Win95 clients with PS driver -> K6II500 servers running samba + cups -> stock 
> 1200's (ie. 8Mb)

> A page of text takes about a minute,

Seriously?  I bought the printer to run off 20-30 page Word documents that
are emailed to me semi-weekly.  The elapsed time from when I click "Print"
in OpenOffice to when the first page begins to appear is about 10 seconds if
the printer's not already warmed up, or 5 seconds otherwise.  The whole job
runs at the advertised 12PPM or so.

> Now this could easily be the client software/driver, but public opinion
> seems to be that these printers are slow on graphics. **again

Nuts.  Well, at least I don't find myself doing this too often.  I guess
I'll just put up with the 5-10 minutes per page wait.

> **Personally I don't care. It's a "real" PS and text printer for ~£200. I
> work at a school, cost is a primary consideration.

It's still a great printer.  As you said, the price is *definitely* right.
The output is spectacular, the toner is cheap, and text output flies.  Were
it not for this snag, I'd say it's the perfect printer.
-- 
Kirk Strauser
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