laser-lovers@uw-beaver (06/27/85)
From: Brian Reid <reid@Glacier> [[Editor's note: The message below is in response to one from J. Nagle. That previous message contained an extract from an article in "Electronic News," Monday, June 24, 1985, titled "18 Firms Support Xerox Print Standard." I didn't forward that message to the entire list since it essentially duplicates the Xerox press release sent out earlier. However, Brian's message, below, raises the interesting question of what the announcement of "support" actually means---if anyone knows at what level these companies plan to support Interpress, please speak up. --Rick ]] "Xerox is making a set of documents describing Interpress available for $50 in single quantities. It is then up to the purchaser to implement Interpress." Ah, I had been wondering what strategy Xerox was going to use to get a working Interpress printer built. Since there isn't yet available an Interpress printer that implements a large enough subset of Interpress to print its own documentation, I knew they had to have some trick up their sleeve. Good work, Xerox! When in doubt, farm out! [As an aside to the skeptics of the network, I didn't see anywhere in that press release any statement that those companies would support Interpress to the exclusion of other schemes. I expect that several of them will support it by means of an Interpress-to-Postscript front end to their existing PostScript printer products.]
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (07/01/85)
From: Randy Frank <FRANK@UTAH-20.arpa> As I understand it, there is a critical difference between what Xerox and Adobe are offering potential vendor who wish to implement their respective page description languages (Interpress and Postscript). Xerox is basically offering a document describing Interpress. Adobe is offering a document plus the option of licensing Postscript interpreter code. Thus, Adobe will actively assist a vendor in getting a Postscript printer to market, where Xerox passively sit by while you develop a product. I would be highly surprised if Xerox does anything to actively assist other laser printer manufacturers in producing (competing) products. Adobe has no such conflict of interest since they are not directly producing a laser printer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be *very* surprised if Xerox starts licensing Interpress interpreter code so that other laser printer company can quickly get competing Interpress printers to market. -------
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (07/02/85)
From: imagen!geof@su-shasta.arpa
My bogometer is ringing off the scale on the latest Interpress-related
comments.
Xerox is doing more for other implementors of Interpress than just
giving them a spec. Xerox has set up an "XNS Institute" (in Xerox-ese
Interpress is part of XNS) which is a formalism that makes it possible
to get consulting services from Xerox for a fee and advice for the
price of a membership. The Institute includes some compatibility
testing facilities. Xerox is also offering classes on writing
Interpress drivers to the general public.
By the way, the 400-odd pages of interpress documentation that Xerox
distributes are far superior to any other document/page description
language specification that I have seen. That includes all languages
mentioned on the list in the last few months, (including, sad to say,
one from Imagen - but we're working on that).
Xerox does not discourage other companies from implementing Interpress,
even when they might compete with Xerox. They encourage it, perhaps
because they realize that the success of Interpress as one of the
emerging de facto standards is success for Xerox. If Xerox doesn't
decide to sell implementations of Interpress and people want them,
someone else will do so. You can use your IMAGENation to figure out
why I know all this ('nuff said).
Re downloading of fonts, Interpress provides a facility to download a
font within a master. The font is downloaded as a vector of Interpress
macros, which is stored in the font imager variable, "showVec". This
is in accordance with the meaning of SHOW described in the spec and the
fact that characters are operators, not descriptions. Personally, I
think that this feature is more useful for defining one or two weird
glyphs than for defining entire fonts.
A "printer resident" font is found by the master as a named part of the
printer's environment. The spec does not specify how things get put
into the printer's environment (in a networked printer, everything in
the net is in the printer's environment, but a more isolated printer
presumably has more rigid rules), so it is possible for downloaded
fonts to be added to the printer's environment independently of the
interpress interpreter. The obvious technique is to enable the
capability as part of the communications protocol. This capability is
entirely within the Interpress specification.
All this is to say that neither Interpress nor Postscript will roll
over and die in the near future. Expect them both to be used and loved
for some time to come.
As regards the comments about Interpress as a front-end for that other
language, we're all still on the floor laughing.
- Geof Cooper
...mumble mumble disclaimer...mumble mumble personal opinion ...