Re: Canon Parallel Printer

[rder@pro-palmtree.cts.com (Richard Der)]

treiter@comet.net (Toby Reiter) wrote:
>In article <h203410@pro-palmtree.cts.com>, rder@pro-palmtree.cts.com
>> mportune@telerama.lm.com (Matt Portune) wrote:
>> >I just picked up a Canon BJC-4100 color bubble jet printer, and
>> >have a question about using it with the GS.  The manual says it
>> >can emulate an Epson LQ printer, so if I smacked a parallel printer
>> >interface in slot 6 (changing it to "Your Card") installed the
>> >Freeware Epson LQ driver, could it theoretically work?  How much
>> >are parallel cards these days?
>>
>> A while ago, I connected a Canon BJ-200, driven with this same
>> driver. It worked great. The print quality, though was not up to
>> par with what the printer could deliver when driven on a PC.
>>
>> Recently, I got the Harmonie printer drivers from Vitesse. The
>> difference is like night and day: not only does the Epson LQ driver
>> from Harmonie print better than the Freeware one (and faster),
>> the print actually looks darker and sharper than with the standard
>> Windows 3.1 BJ-200 driver! It resembles laser print.
>>
>> All I can say is, Harmonie is worth it for those looking for the
>> highest quality print (360x360dpi - yep, it really says this in the
>> "print" dialog box).
>
>Can it do graphics?  Also, how is quality in ProDos 8 programs?
 
Under GS/OS with the Harmonie Epson LQ driver, it can do graphics
very well. I haven't experimented yet, but there are Red, Green,
and Blue (RGB) sliders that allow changing the color balance of
the image. On a B&W printer such as the BJ-200, this feature changes
the emphasis of the different colors.
 
The text output of the Harmonie/Canon BJ combination at 360x360dpi
is the best I've seen for an ink-jet printer on any computer.
Indistinguishable from laser print.
 
ProDOS 8 programs that can support the Epson LQ can print text
and graphics to the BJ. P8 programs that are text only can also
print to it using internal fonts. Internal fonts are fast, but
they don't look as good as truetypes (ie. they resemble typewriter
fonts).
 
I am surprised that Canon never widely advertised the BJ's LQ
compatibility and Vitese never advertised that their Epson LQ
drivers could drive the BJs _at their full 360x360 resolution_.
 
The word is out, HP is not the only game in town! Maybe this info
could be added to one of the Apple II FAQs?
 
 
ddoms@gvi.net (Dennis Doms) wrote:
>One thing to watch for that I ran into with a Canon BJC-600...
>
>Although it works great printing as a graphics printer, they
>apparently can't count lines in text (character) mode. The printer
>won't deliver 66 lines per page emulating an Epson LQ printing ASCII
>text, which goofs up any preformatting based on a calculated page
>length in lines. (This is a _major_ headache on a PC using DOS as well
>as character-based Apple II programs.)
 
Given that BJ printers output at a _higher resolution_ (360x360dpi
compared to HP's 300x300dpi) than Deskjets using the Harmonie drivers,
the benefits may outweigh this consideration for IIGS users.
 
This is not a problem for AppleWorks Classic. From memory (I don't
actually use AW Classic anymore), you can set a custom printer and
define printer codes, number of lines per page, etc.
 
For P8 graphics programs (or non-GS/OS graphics programs specific to
the IIGS like The Print Shop GS), the BJ can print using LQ emulation
whereas the Deskjet can't print at all.
 
>The printer has been wonderful for printing graphics-based documents
>(GS/OS with Harmonie, Windows, or Mac with PowerPrint). I have not
>found a GS/OS driver that supports _color_, though (Harmonie only
>supports the Epson LQ in B&W, though I admittedly have an older
>version and maybe this has been fixed in an upgrade). Note that if you
>plan to also use this printer with Windows or Mac systems (one reason
>I wanted it was to spare buying _several_ printers) that 8 megabytes
>may be a realistic lower limit for system memory to print color
>documents, and 16M is better.
 
Harmonie version 2.11, the latest version, seems to support color on
Epson LQ's (and therefore on Canon BJ's). Can't test this feature
on a B&W BJ-200, though. The support is very elaborate: RGB sliders
to control color balance.
 
Laser quality text, color support, graphics support. Harmonie/BJ is
a great combination. This information should be added to the A2 FAQ.


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