Rapaire -

Our first Laser was an HPIIIP that cost us about $1,200. I added memory and a plugin PostScript cartridge for own own peculiar office requirements, which brought the total to about $3,000. For the specific requirements we had, it was the cheapest thing around. It ran for over 10 years before a wee little plastic part gave out.

We found a local authorized shop, who repaired it for about $50, but it lasted less than 2 months before another wee little plastic part gave out. My inspection then indicated that heat and age had made quite a few parts a bit brittle, so we finally - and sadly - replaced it.

During most of the time we used it, we averaged a bit over 2,500 pages per month through it, which was about 3x the use rate for which HP said the machine was designed. It was approaching a half million sheets on the page count when we retired it.

Our replacement HP1200 was about $350, including a kick up to double the standard internal memory (we still use PostScript occasionally). It has built in "PostScript emulation" which isn't quite as good as the old !PS cartridge, but is sufficient for present use. In PCL mode, it's about twice as fast as the old one. A test page shows we've run a paltry 40,289 sheets throught it but we've only had it for about 5 years so far and our printing needs are much lower now. For most home users, our current 40,000 pages would be close to 10 years use, or perhaps a bit longer, I suspect.

We expect it to outlast both of our current main computers.

John