laser-lovers@uw-beaver (02/06/85)
From: Richard Furuta <Furuta@WASHINGTON.ARPA>
Forwarded from info-mac.
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1) 5-Feb "Kevin W. Laurent" LaserWriter, PostScript, PageMaker, etc.
2) 5-Feb Brian Reid Re: LaserWriter is wonderful but....
Message 1 -- ************************
Mail-From: INFO-MAC-REQUEST created at 5-Feb-85 23:13:28
Return-Path: <KLaurent.Userast@DENVER.ARPA>
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Date: Tue, 5 Feb 85 12:31 MST
From: "Kevin W. Laurent" <KLaurent@DENVER.ARPA>
Subject: LaserWriter, PostScript, PageMaker, etc.
To: info-mac@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <850205193142.230857@DENVER.ARPA>
ReSent-Date: Tue 5 Feb 85 23:13:28-PST
ReSent-From: John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
ReSent-To: info-mac: ;
A good source for information about the LaserWriter, the PostScript
language, AppleTalk, and Aldus Corp's PageMaker is the January 28, 1985
issue of THE SEYBOLD REPORT ON PUBLISHING SYSTEMS (available from
SEYBOLD PUBLICATIONS, INC., PO Box 644, Media, Pennsylvania 19063, (215)
565-2480). They devoted the entire issue to these and related topics
and produced almost the entire contents of the issue using MacWrite,
PageMaker, and the LaserWriter (including bit-mapped graphics merged
with the text).
They also wired their 5 Macs to the LaserWriter and so have lots of
things (mostly good) to say about AppleTalk.
This issue is so chock full of interesting things that it'll take me
awhile to digest. For example, they mention the UltraTalk interface
(developed by Lutzky-Baird Associates) which supposedly provides the
Mac-to-Unix facility we've all been hoping for--access to the full Unix
file management subsystem coupled with the Mac user interface.
Also discussed were the newest version of MacPublisher and a prototype
Linotronic 300 equipped with an Adobe produced PostScript interpreter.
In all I was pleasantly suprised with the upbeat, positive tone of the
issue. In the past, SEYBOLD has had a tendency towards ripping apart
new products. Maybe its just the novelty of the approach--I thought
they were impressed.
KLaurent@DENVER.ARPA
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Mail-From: INFO-MAC-REQUEST created at 5-Feb-85 23:13:33
Mail-From: INFO-MAC-REQUEST created at 5-Feb-85 13:00:43
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Date: Sun, 3 Feb 85 21:31:13 pst
From: Brian Reid <reid@Glacier>
To: INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Cc: Harry Saal <hjs@Lindy>
Subject: Re: LaserWriter is wonderful but....
References: <3321@Glacier.ARPA>
ReSent-Date: Tue 5 Feb 85 13:00:42-PST
ReSent-From: John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
ReSent-To: info-mac@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
ReSent-Date: Tue 5 Feb 85 23:13:33-PST
ReSent-From: John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
ReSent-To: info-mac: ;
There has been a huge amount of traffic in "Laser-lovers@Washington"
(fa.laser-lovers to you usenet folks) on the Apple LaserWriter. It would be
a shame to have to repeat it here. The observations by Harry Saal are not
really true about the LaserWriter.
* There is nothing at all in the LaserWriter ROM that decides how to do
underlining. Don't be silly. All decisions about where underlines go, and
where everything else goes, are made by the application program. This is a
bug in MacWrite, not in the LaserWriter.
[As an aside, the printer is remarkably bug-free. I have been using one for
6 or 7 months now; it is more free of bugs than any software you have seen
in a long time]
* The LaserWriter is not optimized for printing bitmap fonts. It is
optimized for printing outline fonts. On the other hand, it can print
bitmaps as fast as they can be shipped to it; if there are unseemly delays
they must also be caused by MacWrite. (I have never used the LaserWriter
with MacWrite; I use Scribe or TRoff and also create files for it by
hand with Emacs).
* The LaserWriter comes with Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier built in,
plus a symbol font. These are built in as outlines, not rasters; they work
at any size or resolution.
* Although the LaserWriter was not engineered to be used 24 hours a day, I
know people who have been using them extremely heavily for 6 months now, and
they seem to be able to take it very well. At $7K apiece they are
practically disposable by comparison with the 30 page/minute heavy-duty
printers that cost $50K. But they don't need to be disposed. They really do
last.
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