lawrence@bbn.COM (Gabriel Lawrence) (02/06/88)
This is a summary of the paltry amounts of information I received regarding the new Apple LaserWriter IISC (GCC-like Personal Laserwriter): The SC uses a vanilla 68000, 1Meg of memory and QuickDraw as the imaging mechanism. To the Mac it looks more like an Imagewriter LQ than a LaserWriter. All image processing is performed by the Mac and the fonts are all bit mapped limiting you to currently available screen fonts which have a 4x font size equivalent. (eg. a 12 pt. screen size requires a 48 pt. size for printing.) Gripe: I thought Apple could have done _much_ better. 1) By putting QuickDraw in the printer ROM, the SC could have been made to print as fast or _faster_ than any of the postscript printers, in addition, the bandwidth on the SCSI port could have been noticeably decreased. 2) Outline bezier-curve based fonts such as those from Adobe or BitStream might actually prove to be cheaper in the long run for potential users. Large font sizes take up an appreciable amount of room on a hard disk (floppies??, hah!!), enough space such that one might consider whether a one time license fee to a font-factory might be worth it. There is really no reason why this couldn't have been a user option. What's the scoop Apple? Why couldn't a copy of QuickDraw be placed in the printer? I sincerely doubt if it would have taken very much a development effort. Why the limited font mechanism? GCC seems to be able license BitStream's fonts and font displaying routines and still retail their QuickDraw printer for approx. the same list price as Apple. Inquiring minds want to know! =Gabriel Lawrence= =BBN Communications= P.S. Responses indicating "marketing concerns" should be forwarded to /dev/null. Nonstandard disclaimers need not apply.
tecot@apple.UUCP (Ed Tecot) (02/12/88)
Note: I'm forwarding this from an Apple engineer who worked on the IISC. In response to "LaserWriter IISC Gripes" from lawrence@bbn.COM (Gabriel Lawrence): Gripe #1 is that Apple didn't put QuickDraw in the printer, which would have made it as fast or faster than PostScript printers. Answer #1A is that for a large class of documents, the IISC already IS as fast as PostScript printers. Answer #1B is that QuickDraw isn't just QuickDraw; it calls a lot of other stuff in the Mac ROM. Most significantly, it has to call the Font Manager to get fonts loaded, and where are they going to come from if it's running in the printer? By the time you have a useful implementation of QuickDraw in the printer, you have most of a Macintosh in the printer, and it gets expensive and isn't worth it. Gripe #2 is that we didn't use outline fonts for the IISC. This is indeed the IISC's most important limitation, and there is no one simple answer to why we didn't do it. From a strictly engineering point of view I can say that it would have taken a lot longer to get to market, and the printer's performance would have suffered. Many users don't desperately want to have lots of fonts in a continuous range of sizes, and for these people, outline fonts are just overkill. Finally, anyone who takes advantage of the IISC's low price can upgrade to a PostScript LaserWriter later one, if they find they want the PostScript functionality. David Casseres