mkb@rover.ri.cmu.edu (Mike Blackwell) (09/23/87)
We have discovered (the hard way) a very serious bug in Cricket Draw which greatly hampers its usefulness to us. Hopefully, this article will save others time and grief... The basic problem is that Cricket Draw does not work with non-resident printer fonts from Adobe. Here's the whole story, as best I can figure out: We have several LaserWriter-Plus's, and a Linotype L300. The L300 only has the basic set of LaserWriter fonts: Times, Helvetica, Courier and Symbol. Additional fonts (like Palatino) can be purchased from Adobe and either loaded into the L300's memory, or stored on it's internal hard disk. We have invested several thousand dollars into fonts from Adobe - we have many beyond the LW+ set, like Goudy, Garamond and Baskerville. The problem stems from Adobe's font protection schemes. Adobe protects its fonts on three levels: first is the Mac disks that the fonts come on are copy protected. Next, fonts are initialized to a specific printer, which keys them to the printer serial number, so once initialized, the font can only be used on that printer. Finally, there is special code built into PostScript which is intended to prevent you from extracting the spline descriptions of "protected" fonts (conceivably, if this weren't there, you could get by the other forms of copy protection by loading the fonts, and then sucking them back out). It is this last form of copy protection that screws up Cricket Draw. Apparently, it tries to perform some operation on the fonts (like pathforall) which could conceivably be used to extract the font description. On fonts purchased from Adobe, this causes an "invalid access" PostScript error, and the file cannot be printed. This is particularly annoying with pictures using fonts like Palatino - they can be printed fine on the LW+ (because the font is built in), but cannot be printed on the L300. Presumably, using downloaded fonts on the LaserWriter will cause the same problem. I talked to Cricket technical support, and they claim there is no way for them to fix this, and the problem is Adobe's. The only solution they could offer is to buy fonts from somebody other than Adobe (they're the only one using this hairy protection scheme, apparently). It's a little late for that, and besides, Adobe has the fonts we need. Looks like Illustrator wins... Too bad, as Cricket Draw is a nice easy program to whip up simple drawings with. Mike Blackwell The Robotics Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University ARPA: mkb@rover.ri.cmu.edu Phone: 412-268-8830
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (09/23/87)
Adobe had announced they were dropping copy protection, but it
wasn't clear when it was going to take effect. Chuq?
--
Joel West (c/o UCSD)
Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
or ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel joel@palomar.cts.comchuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (09/23/87)
>Adobe had announced they were dropping copy protection, but it >wasn't clear when it was going to take effect. Chuq? It was my understanding that it went into effect as of the Boston MacExpo show on all new shipments -- I also believe there is some way to convert a protected disk to an unprotected disk, but I'm not sure what it is. If your dealer doesn't have the unprotected disks, call Adobe before buying to make sure, or find a dealer with newer inventory. I believe Computerware has unprotected disks in stock, but they can't sell them Mail order -- only through the store and corporate sales. chuq Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ So may the outward shows be least themselves: the world is still deceived by ornament.
hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert Joseph Hammen) (09/23/87)
Adobe has removed some of the copy protection on their fonts. The Mac disk you get is now copyable, and you no longer have to use the initializer program to initialize those fonts for your particular printer; you can simply drag the printer fonts into your system folder. Adobe probably still has the spline protected (as mentioned in an earlier message). Current owners of Adobe fonts can upgrade to the non-perverted ones for something like $50/typeface, if I remember correctly. I have used Adobe non-LaserWriter fonts in Cricket Draw and printed them on our Linotronic 100 before. However, I don't recall doing many special effects with the text, so the problems the original poster may be having might be related to the complexity of the document. Cricket Draw has many problems with the Linotron typesetters, and while the next version of Cricket Draw will be more reliable, it probably won't be much faster (at least that's what they told me at MacWorld). Robert Hammen Computer Applications, Inc. hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu GEnie: R.Hammen Delphi: HAMMEN
gardner@tramp.Colorado.EDU (GARDNER PHILLIP E) (09/23/87)
References: A few weeks ago, I sent out a request for some information. I asked about what options I have when my Mac's power supply board fails. I did receive a few replys. To everyone that replied, thanks! What I ended up doing was taking it to a local Apple dealer. They replaced the bad board with a reworked board and charged me $150 plus tax. I was told that reworked boards are actually better than the originals. Also, a brand new board would cost over $400. You may be able to save some money by sending your board off to a non-Apple individual or company but Apple may refuse to work on that board if they can tell it was fixed at the component level.