joe@lakesys.UUCP (Joe Pantuso) (06/06/89)
Well, I just got my new deskjet printer, it's glorious, but let me tell you I am pretty peaved at amiga software developers. I own Dpaint III, Professional Draw, and Draw Plus. Draw Plus SUCKS and I don't even want to talk about it... Professional draw shows alot of promise, but it is s-l-o-w. I have programs similar to it that run faster on my AT, even at 8MHz, what's the problem? I suspect very poor use of the blitter is at the core of it. Dpaint III is very nice for graphics, I have no right to complain about its' printer output because that is not it's main function. So-can anyone recommend to me a *structured* drawing program that will be fast and allow me to be acurate on paper? I need to be able to do things like make a 1/8" circle and have it be exactly 1/8" on paper. Pro Draw does this very well but as I said it's slow... Another complaint. I've been using Page Stream for a month now and it is riddled with bugs, even the 1.6 update did not help. It has the worst printer driver I have EVER seen, it is slow, eats memory, and doesn't do a decent job. Ventura on a dotmatrix looks better than it did on my deskjet, and venturaon the deskjet is heaven... Also, Professional Page does not really support non post-script printers and that is very dissapointing. Page Setter does it better....ack. -- Joe Pantuso joe@lakesys.lakesys.com Home(414)259-1897 Work(414)281-8700 Software ONE
eberger@godot.psc.edu (Ed Berger) (06/06/89)
I'm very happy with the print quality I get from IntroCAD with my NEC 24pin. Its nice to print a drawing in landscape at 360dpi. I wish It had some more features, and a slightly better user interface, but the drawing printouts are excellent. I remember seeing AEGIS Draw would only print a screen-dump, YUCK! I certainly hope that their newer versions work better with dot matrix printers.I've seen IntroCAD for sale mailorder for ~$50, and hear rumors of an enhanced version, but they haven't sent any update info for this registered original...
rminnich@super.ORG (Ronald G Minnich) (06/07/89)
In article <685@lakesys.UUCP> joe@lakesys.UUCP (Joe Pantuso) writes: >Draw Plus SUCKS and I don't even want to talk about it... Well, whadda ya know ... I have Draw 2000, and it sucks too! They LIE about supporting printers, to say the least ... I sent them a note which was never answered. >Professional draw shows alot of promise, but it is s-l-o-w. I have programs >similar to it that run faster on my AT, even at 8MHz, what's the problem? I >suspect very poor use of the blitter is at the core of it. This sort of experience does get discouraging. My HP friend had nice Paintjet output over two years ago from his scummy AT for his Paintjet. I have had a paintjet for a year now. I use it for AmigaTex ONLY (hint: black and white). >So-can anyone recommend to me a *structured* drawing program that will be >fast and allow me to be acurate on paper? I need to be able to do things >like make a 1/8" circle and have it be exactly 1/8" on paper. Pro Draw does >this very well but as I said it's slow... Well, i don't know what to tell you. Here is the best compromise I have found (but i won't buy it cause it is not quite good enough): ComicSetter Reasonable speed, will sort of do color, text is ok, and it does run at 180 dpi. Makes DPaint* output look pretty sick. My brother brought it down for a test drive and for the first time i could draw things on the amiga and have them print on the paintjet in color and have it look like something. What a shock. As it is I am *almost* ready to toss the Amiga and get a 386 machine plus software that can drive printers, and do other things. Frustration rears its ugly head ... the only thing that keeps me in the fold is AmigaTeX (oh, and i forgot ... Dnet). But it bugs me to go see SmallTalk V on my friend's XT ... >Also, Professional Page does not really support non post-script printers and >that is very dissapointing. Page Setter does it better....ack. I don't know, the machine has been out for almost 4 years and we still can't draw and print. I would think C= would have made that something of a priority. Apparently not. They ain't much time left ... ron
ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) (06/07/89)
In article <628@godot.psc.edu> eberger@godot.UUCP (Ed Berger) writes: >excellent. I remember seeing AEGIS Draw would only print a screen-dump, YUCK! [The original poster had a DeskJet, but I lost that article...] Yes that's true, but the PlotOnJet program recently posted will produce *wonderful* printouts of Draw files. It's a tad slow, but it's worth it. (and it's probably faster than a real plotter, at that.) I'll bet PlotOnJet will work on a LaserJet also. You'd need more than 512K to do anything large, though. Can anyone confirm or deny this? -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP
amr@dukee.egr.duke.edu (Anthony M. Richardson) (06/07/89)
From article <18324@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu>, by ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy): > In article <628@godot.psc.edu> eberger@godot.UUCP (Ed Berger) writes: >>excellent. I remember seeing AEGIS Draw would only print a screen-dump, YUCK! > > [The original poster had a DeskJet, but I lost that article...] > > Yes that's true, but the PlotOnJet program recently posted will produce > *wonderful* printouts of Draw files. It's a tad slow, but it's worth > it. (and it's probably faster than a real plotter, at that.) > > I'll bet PlotOnJet will work on a LaserJet also. You'd need more than > 512K to do anything large, though. Can anyone confirm or deny this? The PlotOnJet program should work with a LaserJet except for maybe one slight problem. The program sends a "Set Raster Width" graphics command to the DeskJet to increase throughput. I don't think the the LaserJet supports this (it may just ignore it tho). Anyway, it would be a pretty trivial mod to the source to get it to work. And, by the way, it should be fairly easy to *modify to support any raster graphics device* (i.e. almost all dot matrix and laser printers). I posted the PlotOnJet program and I'm glad someone else is using it. Even I was surprised at how closely PlotOnjet output on the DeskJet resembles true plotter output. > > -- > Eric Kennedy > ejkst@cisunx.UUCP Tony Richardson amr@dukee.egr.duke.edu
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (06/07/89)
joe@lakesys.UUCP (Joe Pantuso) writes: > >So-can anyone recommend to me a *structured* drawing program that will be >fast and allow me to be acurate on paper? I need to be able to do things >like make a 1/8" circle and have it be exactly 1/8" on paper. Pro Draw does >this very well but as I said it's slow... It's probably not quite what you want, but XCad will do this. It outputs to plotters and to raster (dot-matrix) printers at the resolution available in the plotter/printer. It is not what I would call a drawing program, however: it is a drafting program. I've seen it discounted to $299 in AmigaWorld. The review of it in AmigaWorld was extremely inaccurate, IMHO. BTW, it also lets you specify a scale factor on printing/plotting, so if you decide you want to scale your whole drawing (or the piece you output) so that your 1/8" circle prints/plots as 17/64", you can do that. I would suggest you check exactly how it supports something like a paintjet, however; I use it with plotters and have only experimented with dot-matrix output once or twice.
dbk@teroach.UUCP (Dave Kinzer) (06/08/89)
In article <18324@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu> ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) writes: >In article <628@godot.psc.edu> eberger@godot.UUCP (Ed Berger) writes: >>excellent. I remember seeing AEGIS Draw would only print a screen-dump, YUCK! > >I'll bet PlotOnJet will work on a LaserJet also. You'd need more than >512K to do anything large, though. Can anyone confirm or deny this? > >-- >Eric Kennedy >ejkst@cisunx.UUCP Draw plus has output configuration files that it creates its output data from. There are strings for Pen Down, Pen Up, Move, etc. All very simple stuff. There are also strings to dump at the beginning and end of job. It seams that it would be very easy to come up with strings to dump to a postscript plotter to handle this. I haven't had the need for this yet, but if the opportunity strikes... (My memory may be a little fuzzy, I havn't messed with the output files since I got the program and had to fix one) | // GOATS - Gladly Offering All Their Support Dave Kinzer (602)897-3085| | // >> In Hell you need 4Mb to Multitask! << uunet!mcdphx!teroach!dbk | | \X/ #define policy_maker(name) (name->salary > 3 * dave.salary) |
kms@ecsvax.UUCP (Ken Steele) (06/09/89)
In article <11034@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>, dbk@teroach.UUCP (Dave Kinzer) writes: > In article <18324@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu> ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) writes: > >In article <628@godot.psc.edu> eberger@godot.UUCP (Ed Berger) writes: > >>excellent. I remember seeing AEGIS Draw would only print a screen-dump, YUCK! > > > Draw plus has output configuration files that it creates its output data > from. There are strings for Pen Down, Pen Up, Move, etc. All very simple > stuff. There are also strings to dump at the beginning and end of job. > (My memory may be a little fuzzy, I havn't messed with the output files > since I got the program and had to fix one) You're memory still works. Their "drivers" are simple ASCII config files where you fill in the command for "PEN UP", etc. Their output files, being based on those few commands, are just as simple. It is also just as easy to twiddle with them. I started doing that with simple scaling changes because that was faster than rebooting the program and reloading what (for DrawPlus) were large drawings (simple 400 point scattergrams). -- Ken Steele Dept. of Psychology kms@ecsvax.[bitnet || UUCP] Mars Hill College kms@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Mars Hill, NC 28754