Facing new competition and slipping share in the printer market, Hewlett-Packard Co today comes back fighting with LaserJet 4 and 4M – for Mac – printers. According to PC Week Hewlett-Packard has seen its market share drop by 10% between 1990 and 1991. The new machines incorporate a bidirectional parallel port into the new printer, so that it can communicate printer-status information to users on a network. The LaserJet IV features 600dpi resolution at prices lower than most 300dpi printers in its class, runs a 8ppm, and comes with a new PCL 5 Plus version of the company’s page description language – all for UKP1,650 for the MS-DOS version, UKP2,250 for the Mac one; US prices are some $2,300 and $3,300. Resolution Enhancement technology smooths jagged edges, and it uses a new microfine toner. The printers come with 45 scalable fonts – 35 Intellifont, 10 TrueType, and 35 PostScript typefaces. The printers are driven by Intel Corp’s 80960KA 20MHz RISC and can be upgraded to PostScript Level 2.
