[vcf-midatlantic] NeXT printer emulator/bridge

[Dave McGuire]

On 06/17/2018 04:18 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>>> I have two next laser printers..I thought they were just
>>> ho laser jet II's with an adapter
>>
>>  Dave McGuire wrote;
>>  No, they are very different.  HP never got their hands on
>>  these; NeXT bought SX engines from Canon.
> 
> Well.. The Laserwriter II was also based on a Canon SX engine, which was
> the engine for the LaserJet II. My wife still uses a LJ II or III, and

  Yes, yes, and cool.

> I've sold LW II printers and parts for well over a decade.

  Excellent, I was unaware of that; now I know where to get parts! :-) I
was factory trained by Canon in the servicing of SX engines shortly
after they were introduced.

> Point being, calling all these "a LJ II" is a plausible term of
> convenience, as LJ II's and III's were the most common of the printers
> discussed.

  (Sigh.  Why today, of all days?)

  To call it an "LJ II" is incorrect, because it is not, in fact, an LJ
II.  Even "most common" is subjective...in hindsight by sales volume,
sure, but at the time, in my world of publishing and typesetting when I
was still in NJ, the QMS PS-810 (also based on a Canon SX engine) was to
me (again, at the time) far more common than the HP LJ II...everyone I
worked with had the former, and not a single one had the latter.  So to
say the NeXT printer was a QMS PS-810 would also be incorrect, in the
same way, and for the same simple reason.

  It is the nature of language to evolve, but not so the terminology of
identification of past commercial products.  Now, there's a message in
this mailing list's archives that may give some future researcher the
idea that the NeXT laser printer is an LJ II, which it is not.  That is
why I posted the correction, in hopes that anyone performing research on
this topic in the future will be more thorough than to just read one
message in an archived thread.

  A plausible term of convenience might be "something superficially
similar to an LJ II"... but simply "LJ II" is not.  The NeXT printer
doesn't even look like an LJ II, so even that is a stretch.  We are
technical people living in a world of terminological imprecision,
linguistic laziness, and a disgusting excess of "convenience".  I am a
member of the last generation of people to have used NeXT computers when
they were current products.  Like it or not, we are the custodians of
this knowledge.

  Bill did not know offhand, and that's fine.  We all learn from each
other here.  In this case, someone (me) did know, and came forth with
specific information.

  Technical accuracy in the forum archives of subject matter experts
should never fall victim to "convenience".

               -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA