My current printer (a semi-salvaged Epson 24-pin LQ850) works fairly
nicely, but is noisy & slow.  It also has problems with unattended
printing: It feeds from fanfold paper, and dumps output on top of paper
that it's feeding in, eventually weighting it down---also, if printing
text files through a2ps (2-logical-pages-per-physical-page) | GhostScript,
the printer appears to ``drift'' (I don't know if this is an a2ps or
GhostScript bug; I don't see it with regular-sized dvips | GhostScript, so
I assume that it's in a2ps).  The ``drift'' causes successive pages to be
further and further shifted towards the next physical page; if left
unattended for more than a few physical pages, a2ps | GhostScript would
start printing logical paces on/across the fanfold perforations.

I have thought seriously about getting a new printer.  The Lexmark
ink printers look appealing in price/quality/peformance.  Unfortunately,
they seem to be unsupported by GhostScript, and when I wrote to Lexmark
asking about support (or just a set of printer-codes for writing my own
GhostScript backend, say), they essentially ignored me.


Anyway, I have a couple of questions:

a) Can someone else confirm the ``drift'' problem with another
configuration?  Or suggest a fix?

b) Does anyone have some estimates of price-per-page for printing with
various printers (lasers, inkjets)?  E.g., the Epson LQ-850 seems to be
able to go for about 1000 pages (conservatively) between ribbon-changes. A
ribbon is about $8(US), and 1000 pages of fan-fold paper are about
$12(US).  The LQ-850 doesn't really need any other kind of servicing (no
cleaning, etc.), so ignoring wear and tear on the printer and
``babysitting'', it costs about $0.02(US) per page.

c) Anyone else want to write to Lexmark and ask them about providing a
GhostScript backend?  (Or is there a backend for their printers, now?)  Or
try to get a list of printer codes from Lexmark?  (If enough people ask,
they might eventually give _someone_ a list, or publish the technical
information online.)

d) Are there other printers to avoid?  (I assumed that Epson printers were
well-supported, but someone was saying a month or few back that he had one
of the Epson Stylus models.  His exact model didn't seem to be supported
by GhostScript, so he picked a close-match Stylus support, but feared that
he was getting sub-optimal performance from his printer.  Like me, he
seemed upset with a company (this time, Epson) for not publishing
printer-codes...)  (I think that he was writing in Daemon News, rather
than one of our mailing-lists, come to think of it.)

e) (Are there printers that are particularly recommended?)

f) Laser printers...  One thing that I would like to do would be to print
front and back sides of sheets.  With the LQ-850, and with inkjets, this
doesn't seem to be much of a problem.  I gather that with many(?) laser
printers, however, this is ``bad''.  Is this because the paper tends to
jam on the second pass through, or is it more of a chemical issue?
Apparently, some lasers are designed to handle such dual-sided printing,
though, so the problems must not be too bad.  Are there any dual-sided
bargain-priced lasers?

g) (Last question for now; (^&.)  Ether-based printers seem to be more
expensive, although with some it is a not-too-expensive option.  Probably
I cannot justify/afford such a printer, but if I should (or just for
curiosity's sake): How does such a printer attach to a NetBSD system?
Well, YES, by Ethernet, of course.  That's not what I meant.  I mean, is
there a special node-type to create in /dev?  Do you have to dedicate an
Ethernet card/interface just to the printer?  Or does the printer run a
network operating system (and perhaps manage its own print queues)?


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about." --rauch@eecs.ukans.edu