rusty@WEYL.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (07/13/86)
apparently not all postscript printers are created equal. on the unix tex distribution tape from the univ. washington there is a tex driver for the the apple laserwriter. i tried using it with the qms postscript printer and nothing ever came out. i can't remember if subsequent (non-tex) jobs would print ok without powering down the printer.
reid@DECWRL.DEC.COM.UUCP (07/15/86)
It is possible to write a PostScript program that will not work on every printer. It is equally possible to write a Pascal program that will not work on every computer. However, there is a set of rules, all of which are documented, such that if you follow them, your PostScript program will work anywhere. In the particular case of the TeX driver, its problem is that it messes around with the transformation matrix. The QMS 1200 printer feeds paper long-edge-first, while the Apple printer feeds paper short-edge-first (rotated 90 degrees from that). This means that the default transformation matrices are different--rotated, translated, etc. If you use "setmatrix", to forcibly stuff a transformation matrix out there (rather than concatenating them from the default matrix), then you will have created a machine-dependent PostScript file (unless the matrix that you are setting was created properly). Brian Reid
pb@ethz.UUCP.UUCP (03/24/87)
We are searching for laser printers with PostScript which can also emulate other printers, eg. HP's DDL. If you know anything like this, please letme know. Thanks. Patrick Baur. UUCP: ...!seismo!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!pb
phil@RICE.EDU.UUCP (03/25/87)
>Patrick Baur > We are searching for laser printers with PostScript which can also > emulate other printers, eg. HP's DDL. Ummmm, that's Imagen's DDL. Perhaps you are thinking about HP's laserjet language. Although HP was the first to say "we will market a printer that supports DDL"......Is such a printer out yet? I wasn't even aware that the DDL standard had been published yet. DDL is supposed to be the successor to PostScript---more powerful and versatile. This would make a DDL emulation in PostScript hard, I would think. The real tragedy here is that, even if DDL is better, no one will ever find out because the computing world has gotten so hooked on PostScript (for better or worse). It's the "BASIC" syndrome all over again. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
"Alan_D._Prochaska.OsbuSouth"@XEROX.COM.UUCP (03/27/87)
re: "DDL is supposed to be the successor to PostScript---more powerful and versatile. This would make a DDL emulation in PostScript hard, I would think. The real tragedy here is that, even if DDL is better, no one will ever find out because the computing world has gotten so hooked on PostScript (for better or worse). It's the "BASIC" syndrome all over again." It is the same as our problems of trying to get Interpress accepted, which is also a more powerful and complete pdl than PostScript, but everybody is hooked on the latter. Perhaps in a few years when the high res printing marketplace grows out of its puberty it will be able to deal with more than one pdl in public use, or even change standards. Until then, it looks like it will be whoever can get the most (reasonably stable) visibility the soonest. cheers. Alan Prochaska
til@stollco.UUCP.UUCP (04/04/87)
In article <589.phil.titan@Rice> phil@RICE.EDU (William LeFebvre) writes: > >DDL is supposed to be the successor to PostScript---more powerful and >versatile. This would make a DDL emulation in PostScript hard, I would >think. The real tragedy here is that, even if DDL is better, no one >will ever find out because the computing world has gotten so hooked on >PostScript (for better or worse). It's the "BASIC" syndrome all over >again. > As PostScript has become the pseudostandard of the Desktop Publishing industry, I would like to start a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the different page description languages (PostScript, Interpress, DDL, ...). Is there anybody on the net who can contribute some r e l e v a n t facts or comments, perhaps even technical, to this discussion?
simpson@trwrb.UUCP.UUCP (04/04/87)
As for PostScript vs. DDL, I quote from the March 1987 IEEE Spectrum
magazine article "Desktop publishing: what it can and cannot do" by
Ronald K. Jurgen
Among the typical page description languages available today for desktop
systems are Adobe System's PostScript and Xerox Corp.'s Interpress.
Instead of a page description language, a document-composition language
like Imagen Corp.'s DDL may be used. It conveys the format of a full
document to the printer rather than describing only one page at a time.
Sounds like DDL is a somewhat different beast...
--
Scott Simpson
TRW Electronics and Defense Sector
...{decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!trwrb!simpson