[buug] Color laser printer compatibility

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com):

> Oh, I have no doubt about that...and have decided to drop entirely,
> the idea of purchasing a printer. I have found a printout and
> photocopy service in the Mission (on 16th near Valencia) that does an
> excellent job...w/o requiring you to do it all yourself, thus having
> to pay for the inevitable bad results that occur frequently, and you
> have to wait a long time to get any problem resolved, everyone's so
> busy-busy, and this is why I avoid Kinko's.

At least you can rest in the knowledge that the printing-shop business is
notoriously competitive.  Which is not to say that bad deals are
impossible, but only that you can detect them readily, and fix them by
walking a few doors down to the next guy.

However, I thought I'd mention a third option you might pursue over
time:  _used_ colour lasers.  Logically, those that Grant Taylor
endorsed, half a decade or so ago, would make a safe bet.  Those were:

o HP Color LaserJet 2550L
o Minolta Magicolor 2450.
o other, contemporaneous pure-PostScript colour lasers
o Konica or Minolta QMS Magicolor DL series

A vendor on eBay is offering an HP Colour LaserJet 2550L for auction,
current high bid $25.

http://computers.shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQTechnologyZLaserQQ_dmptZCOMPQ5fPrinters?_nkw=LaserJet+2550L&_sacat=178&_trksid=m270&_odkw=&_osacat=178

You'll notice the "BuyItNow" (no-bid) price of $275, but that's not the
auction.

A Konica Minolta QMS Magicolor 2450 is shown, but not as an auction item
but rather as BuyItNow ($395).

There are two Konica Minolta Magicolour DL printers currently up for
bid:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Konica-Minolta-Magicolor-5430-DL-Laser-Printer_W0QQitemZ320362915693QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item4a971e276d&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

http://cgi.ebay.com/KONICA-MINOLTA-MAGICOLOR-5440-DL-printer-color-laser_W0QQitemZ230343112437QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item35a184f6f5&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50


This printer on Craiglist isn't quite one of what Taylor recommended,
and indeed is shown on Openprinting.org as a "GDI printer" -- a printer
that offloads all imaging onto the host computer -- but works well
enough and has open source drivers _and_ is cheap:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/1168177173.html
http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Minolta-magicolor_2400W

Probably the same cut-rate printer, $25 cheaper still:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sys/1160988023.html



Doing this search brings up a whole bunch (85) of other local prospects:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sys?query=color laser

You could do a whole lot worse than to just research a dozen or so of
the best-looking candidates on Openprinting.org, and then just buying
one and getting it over.