The Lexmark Optra Color 45 inkjet has postscript and you can even get a
network card included, but it costs about $1100.
This is one of the very few postscript inkjet printers.
All inkjet manufacturers make exorbitant profits
off their ensuing ink sales,
legally designing their cartridges to attempt maintaining
a monopoly, though court cases have weakened this somewhat.
Hewlett Packard makes more profit from here than anywhere else in the
company.
So, how do you avoid exorbitant ink costs?
Answer: you add-on a third-party's CONTINUOUS INKING SYSTEM (CIS) for
about $250 [paid for in 1 year], after seeing the Slashdot article
[piece together the following 2 line Slashdot link,
which has no spaces],
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=33357threshold=0
commentsort=0tid=98mode=threadpid=3602781#3603183
That response lists some sellers of CIS,
but I will one day try the CIS seller ranked high by Google,
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/cis
which is the same site as InkJetArt.
With such a system, you can choose to use inks almost identical
to your manufacturer's for about 1/4 the cost.
Or you can choose to use archival inks, or other inks:
flexibility in hardware like the flexibility we like in Linux software.
That tssphoto.com site above tells with which printers
the CIS system works, all Epson printers!
Evidently, Epson makes printers that are more easily altered,
although their latest line includes electronics on their cartridges,
increasing the expense of a CIS system.
You can see their ink comparisons at,
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/archival_inks.html
One of these months, I will buy either
a. Epson Stylus Photo 1280 $450
b. Epson Stylus Photo 1200 $180? over ebay
Epson no longer makes this model,
but it is one of the last without electronics
in the print cartridges.
As a result, the third-party CIS system costs less, and
the Epson 1200 costs less new and now used.
At the above website,
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/cis/
look at the displayed printer.
On the right you will see six 4-ounce/125ml
bottles of ink.
You can see installation instructions with lots of
pictures,
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/cis/instructions/CIS-nonchipped.html
Looking at these pictures, you can see the high Geek Factor.
Did you look at Linux suggested printers at,
http://www.linuxprinting.org/suggested.html
On Tue, Jun 18, 2002 at 03:03:12PM -0600, Mike Fontenot wrote:
I've got a Lexmark Optra Ep that just died, and
I need to replace it. I've read the linuxprinting.org
web page, and that has helped some, but I don't see
many of their recommendations in the mail-order catalogs
that I've got.
My wife has been bugging me to get a color printer anyway,
so I guess I'll need to go with an inkjet. But I've thought
the cost/page of the Lexmark is already bad, so I'll
probably be horrified with the operating costs of an inkjet.
I've been using CUPS with the Optra Ep, and it's been working
pretty well. I've liked having the built-in postscript.
Is postscript not a factor on the inkjet printers? (I don't
think postscript is mentioned in the inkjet section of the
linuxprinting.org webpage).
I've also searched for past recommendations. The webpage
seems to push Epson C80 the most. I've seen some complaints
of reliability for other Epson models, but nothing specifically
for the C80.
Any recent experience with these (or other) printers (and info
about where to buy them)? I'm running potato, and using the
parallel connector for printing.
Mike Fontenot
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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