Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-beaver Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!uw-beaver!laser-lovers From: laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) Newsgroups: fa.laser-lovers Subject: Message-ID: <827@uw-beaver> Date: Fri, 10-Feb-84 01:37:05 EST Article-I.D.: uw-beave.827 Posted: Fri Feb 10 01:37:05 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 20:48:52 EST Sender: root@uw-beave Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 90 From shel@ima!cfib.UUCP Fri Feb 3 22:37:00 1984 We have had a 6670 for the past three years hooked up to our ONYX computer. We have run about 80000 sheets/month so I think we can give you some good experience. Point by point: - can be loaded with up to 2700 sheets of paper Quite true, in addition it has an alternate paper tray for letterhead and the like, but unfortunately you cannot switch back and forth within a single print file. You either have your whole document on the alternate paper, or just the first page (letter mode) - all point addressable - graphics, fonts, etc. theoretically possible, but probably not very practical. In addition we were told these features would only be available from 370/4000 series of IBM machines. I wouldn't depend on it. - down loaded fonts once again only available on 370's. They told us the transmission codes were proprietary and would not be available. - rotation mode - portrait or landscape Yes but once again you cannot switch within a single print file. Your whole file has to be printed rotated. We did need this feature and ended up breaking up the print file into many pieces In addition only a few fonts are available in the rotated mode. - is both a copier and a printer Absolutely, but you should watch out for the per page costs. They run about 3cents per which is very expensive for a copies (most copies run less than 1 cent per) - can print on both sides of paper True. If you need duplex this beast is for you. - Cost of basic unit (hmm, does the basic unit do all those things?) would be about $31k to us (don't know how that relates to the rest of the world). We leased ours. - It uses EBCDIC, but the salesman claims knowledge of code converters from ASCII. We were fortunate to have direct Bisync communications available on our ONYX directly. We did play around with some protocol convertors and actually got the beast going pretty well, we did have some problems and did not get everything going correctly. There were some funny problems with telling the convertor when the end of the file was reached and doing some special character translations which were necessary. - I have heard from one person already that the paper path is quite baroque and that the IBM repair people spend a lot of time fixing paper jams; anything else? This is true, the paper changes speeds 3 times in the printing process, we only started having real trouble up around 75K copies/mo. Some other comments: IBM service is all you have heard about it (at least here in Boston). The sales people are always available to help out and the service people park themselves at your site to fix problems usually within 4 hours. The machine is built like a tank and is designed to run about 75-100K copies a month. This is the real issue with this machine in comparison to 2700's or Canon based machines. These other machines are based on desktop copies transports usually rated at about 20K copies a month. I can easily see the canon blowing up trying to do 60K copies a month. In addition the IBM has a real output stacker which offsets jobs and holds about 2000 pages. The 2700 and canon would probably hold a few hundred. Same with input trays. The 6670 main input is 2000 sheets plus 700 in the alternate tray. 2700/Canon a few hundred. 6670 supports duplex and if this is necessary you have little choice since neither the 2700/canon support this. A major drawback is the limited fonts available. There is really only one proportional font and it is only available in one size, so forget big titles and small footnotes. However the print quality is excellent due to a very unusual toner system they use. If you want font flexibility either the 2700/canon will serve you better. Where are we today? Our 6670 is being removed in 2 weeks, We had a Xerox 8700 installed 2 months ago and are in love with it. We have it completely interfaced with troff, it prints 70 pages/minute and has a monthly duty cycle of about 1 million pages. It is a bit pricey however, about $350K. Hope this is of help. Sheldon Laube, The Consumer Financial Institute, Boston, 617-969-2632 decvax!yale-co!ima!cfib!shel, ucbvax!cbosgd!ima!cfib!shel, {allegra|research|amd70}!ima!cfib!shel