Asdcsvax.285 NET.periphs utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!sdcsvax!phil Tue May 12 16:53:51 1981 Versatec V-80 Review We have recently installed a Versatec V-80 electrostatic plotter for producing phototypesetter facsimiles. Aside from a couple of hardware problems, we are satisfied with its performance. The plotter costs $8,500 and the unibus interface is another $2000. Included with the plotter was necessary cable, a documentation package and some starter supplies. The model V-80 comes standard as a table top configuration. We were able to install the 2 interface boards in SPC slots (one slot must be modified for DMA) and use vtroff immediately. The boards have no dip switches so any change to the address, vector, etc. involves cutting/soldering etches. Berkeley's software for running the typesetter simulator required only a small amount of reconfiguration. Modifications are available to the 4BSD Versatec software to support using form feeds with fan-fold paper, this insures page alignment on long jobs. There is also a "plot" filter that renders "graph" output on the V-80. Our V-80 has suffered from a bad power supply and a flakey "write head". In both cases, field service was only fair; they are slow getting parts. (down for a full week each time) I just learned that the V-80 power supply can be the source of several problems and the Versatec engineers are working on a fix. One thing we have observed is the difference in quality between the roll paper and the fan-fold stock. The roll paper is much better; it produces a clearer image with a pure white background. The fan-fold stuff is nice because it easily bursts into pages, but the print quality is poor compared to the roll paper. The background is slightly gray all the time resulting in lower contrast. The fan-fold stock also comes out "slimier". Anyone else experience this? Versatec swears the paper is all the same. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.