[net.text] Need nroff driving table for DEC printer

carlc@teklabs.UUCP (Carl Clawson ) (10/05/84)

I have a DEC LA-100 printer.  There is available for this machine
a character set ROM (SYMBOLS-10) that produces Greek and mathematical
symbols.  Does anyone have an nroff terminal driving table for this
printer that includes the SYMBOLS-10 characters?  Is there any reason
nroff wouldn't be able to utilize this character set?

With nroff running on all those thousands of DEC computers,
someone MUST have done this already.  Hello, DEC??

I'm not yet interested in learning how to construct nroff driving
tables, but if no one has one already done I may wish to do so.
I will welcome instructions for doing this.

Many thanks,
Carl Clawson
Tektronix, Inc.
MS 50-324, PO Box 500,
Beaverton, Oregon 97077
(503)627-6304
{allegra,decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!tektronix!teklabs!carlc

mikem@uwstat.UUCP (10/07/84)

> I have a DEC LA-100 printer.  There is available for this machine
> a character set ROM (SYMBOLS-10) that produces Greek and mathematical
> symbols.  Does anyone have an nroff terminal driving table for this
> printer that includes the SYMBOLS-10 characters?  Is there any reason
> nroff wouldn't be able to utilize this character set?

I have such a driver, BUT it is VERY UGLY:  The main reason for the
ugliness is that the la100 will not reliably do a reverse form-feed
unless one uses friction feed, and that is more of a problem than
I am willing to put up with.  So I have a la-100 nroff driver and then a
post-processor which gets rids of the reverse form-feeds and other
ugliness and then prints pages;  Well if this isn't bad enough - the
nroff driver generates an obscure set of codes because I have several
different post-processors for several different (and all brain-damaged)
types of printers.  This was I only have to run nroff once and then I
can preview the document on say a zenith z-29 terminal and print it
later on a real letter quality printer or the la100.

But (again) it is UGLY . So if you are absolutely desperate I'll send
you what I have; otherwise I suggest that it is almost worthwhile
figuring out how to write your own drivers.  But you too will curse
nroff for wanting to put out reverse line-feeds.
-- 

Mike Meyer --  Phone (608) 262-1157

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rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (10/12/84)

> > [request for nroff driving tables for LA-100]
> > ...
> 
> I have such a driver, BUT it is VERY UGLY:  The main reason for the
> ugliness is that the la100 will not reliably do a reverse form-feed
----I have to assume that "reverse line feed" is really the problem.  Nroff
    doesn't use form feeds, let alone reverse form feeds (and in my limited
    experience, I've never seen a device that had them).
> unless one uses friction feed, and that is more of a problem than
> I am willing to put up with.  So I have a la-100 nroff driver and then a
> post-processor which gets rids of the reverse form-feeds and other
> ugliness and then prints pages;

What's the other ugliness?  If reverse LINE feeds (half and full) are the
problem, col(1) has been around for years to solve just that problem.
Even if you have to write one yourself, it's not that hard a problem.

> ...  But you too will curse
> nroff for wanting to put out reverse line-feeds.

Why?  From the user's standpoint, it's reasonable for most uses of reverse
motion (namely, superscripts and subscripts).  From the implementation
standpoint, it's a reasonable alternative to trying to hold an entire page
before output.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...Relax...don't worry...have a homebrew.