[net.text] HP Roman-8 character set and other Laser-Jet info wanted

wcs@ho95b.UUCP (Bill Stewart) (11/10/84)

I just got an HP Laser-Jet, and am trying to find good ways to use it.

For troff, the answer is easy; Brent Byer of Textware and Ken Greer of ELAN
both offer ditroff output filters.  I've seen Textware's and I'm really
impressed; it can handle a reasonable amount of eqn output using the raster
format, and produces good clean equations as well as standard text and
perfectly-aligned tbl boxes.  Both companies say they don't handle pic yet,
but expect to support  it in a few months.

For basic line-printer work, I'm trying to find a filter that will handle the
Roman-8 character set, to do umlauts, accent marks, and such.  This is the
same character set offered on the HP-150 and several previous terminals and
printers.  Does anyone have a filter that will drive it?  How about a good
System V LP spooling interface for the laser-jet?  (The 2631a and hp(1)
filters can't handle the job unmodified.  I'm in the process of hacking them
up, but I'd prefer to minimize the total amount of re-writing I do.)

On thing I couldn't figure out from the manual: if I write stuff on a line,
move to a different line and back, and then write more things, will the later
stuff replace the former, or will both get combined?


			Thanks in advance,

				Bill Stewart
				{ihnp4,allegra,houxm}!ho95b!wcs
				AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
-- 
			Bill Stewart
			AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705
			...!ihnp4!ho95b!wcs

henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/13/84)

> On thing I couldn't figure out from the manual: if I write stuff on a line,
> move to a different line and back, and then write more things, will the later
> stuff replace the former, or will both get combined?

The LaserJet does full overprinting.  I haven't tried a specific test case
along these lines yet, but I have tried tbl tables with both boxes and text
blocks, both of which use backward vertical motions heavily to "go back and
finish things up".  They work fine.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry