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Printer Recommendations

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    Printer Recommendations

    Hello:

    Need to purchase a new laserjet B/W printer to work with Alpha 5 and its upcoming versions to run under win 98SE or WIN 2000. Any recommendations (good or bad) would be appreciated. TIA.

    #2
    RE: Printer Recommendations

    Until Alpha gets their act together (ver. 5?), you may find that you have to use a generic print driver with your HP (or other) printer. It may require trial & error. Having said that, I now only buy HP printers and Dell PCs.
    Peter
    AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

    [email protected]
    https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


    Comment


      #3
      RE: Printer Recommendations

      Peter, why do you say that? What troubles are you having?

      I and my customers combined use A5 on NT, Win3.11, Win95, Win98, and Win98SE and have not had any problems with printers - Laserjets by HP, IBM, and Lexmark that I know of and Inkjets by HP and Canon at least. I have no experience yet with 2000 or ME. As far as I know, if there is a Windows driver for your printer and your operating system then you should be all set.

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Printer Recommendations

        Cal,

        Others have reporterd problems with Alpha and certain print drivers. In my own experience Alpha crashes using certain HP printers/drivers. Alpha crashing with our HP Laser 2100 at work. It took me almost a dozen tries with different older HP drivers before I found one that worked with both Alpha and the HP (it was the Laserjet 2000 driver that works). With an HP Deskjet 970cxi printer had to use the 855c "generic" driver (off the Windows 98 CD). Disabling the Numerical Processor (Control Panel/System properties/System Devices/Numeric data Processor/properties) also works, but seems to slow things down and cause an intense amount of disk thrashing in certain apps.
        Peter
        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

        [email protected]
        https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


        Comment


          #5
          RE: Printer Recommendations

          Interesting that all or most of these problems seem to be with HP printers and yet you now only buy HP printers! Strange or?? And the Alpha web site server crash a while back was, I believe, with a fairly new Dell server. My own experience with Dell and recent HP printer models certainly wouldn't warrant going with them exclusively, though I also would not avoid either one. As for other printer brands, a couple of my clients have had good luck with LexMark laser printers (Optra S 1650 and 1850, I think). I think HP printers (and their drivers)of 5 years ago or so were better than models that have come out since then.

          Ray

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Printer Recommendations

            This is interesting because, as you may have seen in another thread, Alpha keeps crashing when I try to use my new HP 990Cxi printer. Had an old HP 870cxi which caused no problems.

            I was going to try a newer driver for the 990cxi perhaps I had better try and find an older one!!

            Incidently, the printer crashes all versions of Alpha Five including 3.04. It doesn't crash any other program including Access 2000.
            Jenny Earnshaw
            BusinessPlus (Letchworth) Ltd

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Printer Recommendations

              Michael,

              My basic rule is either

              1. Buy an Hp LaserJet becaues it is the standard printer that everyone tries to emulate
              2. Buy the most cost effective printer (e.g. an old Okidata 600e had a very cheap replacement toner cartridge) and consider the speed, paper paths (jamming problems), noise levels, low operating power, low standby power, initial costs and operating costs. The compatibility should be to an HP Laserjet and hopefully is done well to minimize driver issues.

              Regards,

              Ira J. Perlow
              Computer Systems Design & Associates
              [email protected]
              Regards,

              Ira J. Perlow
              Computer Systems Design


              CSDA A5 Products
              New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
              CSDA Barcode Functions

              CSDA Code Utility
              CSDA Screen Capture


              Comment


                #8
                RE: Printer Recommendations

                Peter,
                I agree with you 100%. We now make it standard operatiing procedure to warn any new installations of our apps that there is very high probability of crash if they currently have HP drivers loaded. We also suggest to all new customers that if they must use HP drivers to remove them before installing our app and A5 and then reloading them. If A5 loads before the HP drivers life seems to be a little better in some cases.
                Jeff

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Printer Recommendations

                  Our basic rule is NOT to buy HP printer products. The printers that emulate the HP printers are fine. We have been using Lexmark and Okidata and we hvae no problems. We gave up on HP printers 2 1/2 years ago because of costs, reliability (yes I said reliability) and poor printer driver support. We had to send 2 new HP printers back because they kept jamming and some of the others we have either jam or won't pull paper through correctly aside from other problems.

                  mike
                  Mike Reed
                  Phoenix, AZ

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Printer Recommendations

                    Interesting discussion! I do not have problems with and HP 450N and drivers with A5ver4. But the other day needed to reactivate and old database in A5 ver1, different hardware and with an HP 2100. The print preview is scrambled and the reports take approx. 90 seconds per page.
                    I am going to try Peter's suggestions.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Printer Recommendations

                      Michael,

                      We, too, have a lot of problems with HP's and other printer drivers. The HP2100 seems to be the most widespread as it's a popular printer. Here are some of the fixes we've compiled from our clients as a result of A5 illegal functions:

                      1. HP 6L driver on the Windows 98 CD works to replace the Laserjet printer driver
                      2. The Epson Stylus Color ESC/P 2 Driver on the Windows 98 CD works to replace the Epson Stylus Color 600
                      3. HP2100 Laserjet - use HP2000 driver on Windows 98 CD
                      4. HP970cxi - use HP855C on Windows 98 CD
                      5. HP4000TN - use HP Laserjet 4 Plus on Windows 98 CD
                      6. HP4050N- use HP4000 on Windows 98 CD
                      7. HP8000N - use HP 4P or use the 8000 N 5e on Windows 98 CD

                      HP's website has some cross-referencing that can help you determine which earlier driver is a good substitute.

                      I haven't been able to find a fix for all Samsung printer drivers. One client had that printer and didn't want to get rid of it. So they got rid of our application!

                      Hope this helps.

                      Tom Hlavin

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Printer Recommendations

                        That's real smart! Throw the baby out with the bathwater!!

                        Regards,

                        Ira J. Perlow
                        Computer Systems Design & Associates
                        [email protected]
                        Regards,

                        Ira J. Perlow
                        Computer Systems Design


                        CSDA A5 Products
                        New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
                        CSDA Barcode Functions

                        CSDA Code Utility
                        CSDA Screen Capture


                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Printer Recommendations

                          Ray,
                          I am so sick of buying printers that don't work right. e.g. I had a Epson laser printer (it's sitting in my attic now - you are welcome to it) that would not print more than one legal size sheet at a time - and you had to manually reset the printer menu each time for each legal page. Then I had a Canon inkjet that whirred, buzzed, screeched for two minutes whenever you turned it on, turned it off, or printed something after a long pause. It also printed unacceptably slow in b&w or color (in direct contradiction to the advertising - "lightening fast...". The ink cartridges locked the printer up on a regular basis, etc. etc. I could go on, but I won't. Although the new HP print drivers cause Alpha to crash, using generics or substitutes works acceptably. AND HP-Printers work as advertised in my experience. And I love my stealth-quiet & speedy HP-970cxi inkjet (I have two of them). Highly recommended!

                          Peter
                          Peter
                          AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                          [email protected]
                          https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Printer Recommendations

                            Tom,
                            Thanks for listing those. I'll add those to my file.
                            Peter
                            AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                            [email protected]
                            https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: Printer Recommendations

                              Oh yeah, regarding Dell. I used to buy Gateways, even though the early models used el-cheapo components that had to be replaced every other day or so. But when Gateway got rid of the reset (i.e. reboot) button, I dumped them. I asked one of the techs why they did that. He told me that users became "confused" between the power-on and reset buttons (I get confused when I can't reboot). When I asked how are you supposed to reboot, he said ctrl-alt-del. And when the keyboard locks up? - "turn the power off..". That was enough for me. I'm not against other PC's, but we have had good luck with Dells at work.
                              Peter
                              AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                              [email protected]
                              https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                              Comment

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