hbquikcomjamesl
02-02-2007, 02:34 PM
This Tuesday, my Xerox Phaser 6120 arrived.
I took it home, and unpacked it, encountering the first two surprises:
1. It's even bulkier in real life than it is on paper.
2. If you want to print an envelope, you have to open the cover and change two guides before doing so, then reverse the procedure to go back to regular paper.
Still, for a color PostScript laser printer that still had a parallel interface, I was prepared to accept that, since it would replace both my aging HP LaserJet 2100M and my ALPS MicroDry. So I powered the thing up, encountering the next surprise:
It's noisy. Easily the noisiest laser printer I've ever encountered.
Then I hooked up my notebook computer, and tried to print from Xerox Ventura Publisher (DOS/GEM edition). Sure, it's a 17-year-old version of an application that debuted at least 20 years ago, but it still works, and works extremely well. I opened up the test document that comes with it, and printed. A few seconds later, a page came out of the printer. Unfortunately, it wasn't the test document: the printer had been unable to digest the data stream, and so it vomited up a PostScript error page.
My LaserJet 2100M doesn't have a problem with data streams out of Ventura. Neither does Adobe Acrobat Distiller.
I could have lived with almost any of the shortcomings I found. Except this.
When I took it in to the local Staples for a refund (nice, how they'll accept in-store returns of on-line purchases), damned if there wasn't another returned Phaser 6120 sitting there!
I took it home, and unpacked it, encountering the first two surprises:
1. It's even bulkier in real life than it is on paper.
2. If you want to print an envelope, you have to open the cover and change two guides before doing so, then reverse the procedure to go back to regular paper.
Still, for a color PostScript laser printer that still had a parallel interface, I was prepared to accept that, since it would replace both my aging HP LaserJet 2100M and my ALPS MicroDry. So I powered the thing up, encountering the next surprise:
It's noisy. Easily the noisiest laser printer I've ever encountered.
Then I hooked up my notebook computer, and tried to print from Xerox Ventura Publisher (DOS/GEM edition). Sure, it's a 17-year-old version of an application that debuted at least 20 years ago, but it still works, and works extremely well. I opened up the test document that comes with it, and printed. A few seconds later, a page came out of the printer. Unfortunately, it wasn't the test document: the printer had been unable to digest the data stream, and so it vomited up a PostScript error page.
My LaserJet 2100M doesn't have a problem with data streams out of Ventura. Neither does Adobe Acrobat Distiller.
I could have lived with almost any of the shortcomings I found. Except this.
When I took it in to the local Staples for a refund (nice, how they'll accept in-store returns of on-line purchases), damned if there wasn't another returned Phaser 6120 sitting there!