David Lock

Hi, advice please.....

I am looking for a reasonable office printer to replace an aged HP Laser Jet 4 which has given excellent service for over a decade with good quality print although no colour and little memory. Printer needs to accept DOS work such as Word Perfect.

In fact I bought a Samsung CPL-500 this week only to find it didn't accept DOS stuff. It's big brother the CPL-550 will take DOS but is expensive and reviews weren't that good. Colour would be an added bonus but I am really more interested in output quality and reliability. In £200 - £350 budget. Thanks, David

mj

is the samsung for sale then?

David Lock

Shop (Office World) said they would take it back for full refund which I thought was pretty good of them

FrenchBoy

David,

we buy the Kyocera Mita FS-1010 at my place. They are great little printers that take quite a battering from thoughtless retarded users.

You can get them for between £169 - £200.

David Lock

That's me then I will put into Google and see what comes up. Not a name that springs to mind. Do you know if they take DOS stuff - sorry for sad question... Thanks. David

FrenchBoy

LOL - Its been a while since we had to print anything from DOS!

Just double check with Kyocera before you buy (they tend to be quite helpful).

GaryK

Our main printer is an HP2200 DT which is an excellent laser for bulk printing, its been around a couple of years, think its about £500+VAT to buy, does duplex comes with 2 trays and manual feed as standard and you can buy additional trays too.

Gary

douglasb

David - when you say that it won't accept DOS stuff, do you mean that Samsung don't provide DOS drivers? If that is the case, check the documentation with your printer. Look for anything mentioning Page Description Languages and see if there is any mention of PCL.

If there is, you can continue to use HP Laserjet drivers (ie. just tell Wordperfect that you are still printing to a Laserjet 4). Which driver to use depends on which level of PCL it uses. A Laserjet 4 driver should work if it is PCL5; try a Laserjet 5Si driver if it is PCL5e.

If the printer has a toner-saving mode or more paper trays than the Laserjet you will not be able to control these features, but you should be able to get similar prints to what you had on the HP.

David Lock

Doug, many thanks for that - I'll investigate and report back. David

David Lock

Douglasb,

When I got printer I tried to use "Select Printer" option in Wordperfect but couldn't get it to "find" the newly installed Samsung. If I simply hit PRINT command nothing happened. I then contacted Samsung who told me that it wouldn't take DOS stuff although their latest model would. Incidentally I also phoned Hewlett Packard who said they they thought some of their new models might take WP DOS stuff but that they didn't provide any suitable drivers. Here is the relevant part of the spec' for the Samsung- does this take me forward I wonder?

====
Memory 64 MB (Standard), 192 MB (Max)
Print Language SPL-C (GDI Equivalent)
Print Resolution Up to 1200 dpi class
Connectivity (Standard) Hi-Speed USB 2.0, IEEE-1284 Parallel
Connectivity (Optional) 10/100 Base TX, 10/100 Base TX + 802.11b Wireless LAN
=========

PS. Having seen the print standard of the Samsung I am now inclined to the view that I will get a better quality print if I get a mono machine rather than a combo mono/colour. However I would keep the Samsung (which will be a hassle to return) if I could get it to take WP stuff.
DL

douglasb

David - The relevant bit is "Print Language SPL-C". I haven't heard of this one, but I'm guessing that the S stands for Samsung and that it probably isn't PCL compatible, so my suggestions won't work.

(I've just had a look at the Samsung website and it looks like you won't be able to get the Samsung to work with WP.

The CLP-550 would work if you can get a PCL6 or Postscript 3 driver for WP, but I think these Page Description Languages might be too new for the DOS version of WP. My suggestion of using a Laserjet 5Si driver would probably work with the CLP-550)

Hewlett Packard printers should work from DOS/Wordperfect even if HP don't supply drivers. The latest HP printers should accept PCL for older HP printers, so my earlier suggestion of using the newest WordPerfect Laserjet driver should work.

David Lock

Thanks again, appreciate your input

OK I think I can follow that - it's the "should" that worries me

Samsung told me that their newer - and more expensive - model, the CLP-550 would accept WP and the spec says:

========
PostScript Support
Standard
Language Simulation
PostScript 3, SPL-C, PCL 5Ce
========

So it seems to have the PCL stuff that you mentioned above. David

douglasb

It sounds like it will work from Wordperfect as it has PCL5Ce. If no driver for Wordperfect is provided, the most recent Laserjet driver you can find should work but will only print mono. If Samsung don't provide a Wordperfect driver and you need to print colour from WP, try Colour Laserjet drivers.

Good luck.

David Lock

Many thanks. David