[168] in UA Exec
Re: Notification of 'Printer in the W20 "Game Room"' Project
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Geoffrey Thomas)
Sun Dec 6 15:03:38 2009
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 15:03:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Geoffrey Thomas <geofft@MIT.EDU>
To: Quentin Smith <quentin@mit.edu>
cc: "Vrajesh Modi (UA Special Projects Committee)" <ua-projects-chairs@mit.edu>,
Owen Derby <oderby@mit.edu>, ua-senate@mit.edu, ua-exec@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.10.0912052346140.30247@dr-wily.mit.edu>
On Sat, 5 Dec 2009, Quentin Smith wrote:
> IS&T is funding the purchase of the new printer, which they probably would
> have done anyway. I believe the intent is for the UA's money to contribute
> only to physical security; this may include adding card access or electronic
> passcode locks.
The e-mail containing the funding bill asserts that physical security
would cost O($4k).
> You are presuming wrong - the current plan is to put in a fast Xerox printer.
How much is this printer?
The Xerox 4150n on kslprinters.com is $700, and has 45ppm and an 8-second
warmup time, for $800. If you compromise a bit more, the 3124 gets you
25ppm and 9 seconds to warm up, for $180. So I'm not seeing the $6.5k
proposed budget, and I think it's important that if the UA and not just
IS&T participates in this, the budget should be a little more evident.
Basically, while I admire this goal, I'm not sure the UA should be in the
business of buying standard-use Athena printers for IS&T -- this project
is particularly compelling because it solves a use case for quick, short,
timely printouts that the usual Athena printers don't (so 25ppm seems
plenty, because if you're printing more than 25 pages on this printer
you're doing something wrong). Insofar as the UA is buying printers for
IS&T, it should do so with a particular mind towards frugality. Having a
big budget is not an excuse to be lax in planning cool things; it's an
excuse to do _lots_ of cool things.
> Also, it is likely, though not for sure yet, that w20color will move
> into W20-575 and thus there will still be six printers, including a
> color one.
This is great news! Presumably w20color will then be completely free of
charge?
--
Geoffrey Thomas
geofft@mit.edu
