[comp.sys.hp] Nroff/Troff for HP-UX with Laserjet

jv@mhres.UUCP (Johan Vromans) (05/23/87)

A few weeks ago, I put the following question on the net:

> Hewlett-Packard makes fine computers (HP9000) with good operating systems
> (HP-UX) and even better laserprinters (HP-Laserjet).
> 
> Is there anybody who can provide me with a version of nroff (or troff)
> for HP9000 model 500 or 300, running HP-UX, which is capable driving the
> Laserjet? Of course HP should provide them, but they don't.

I have received lots of replies, which I will summarize here.

    eroff from ELAN. Contains troff, pic, grap, tbl, eqn
    exclusively for the HP Laserjet, using the B or F cartridge.
    It does a fine job except for one major thing. It knows how to
    download fonts (if you've got an LJ+), but only HP soft fonts.
    Lacking these, printing much of anything in a point size other
    than the default makes the LJ die on a complexity error (21).
    So, if you want to do more than a line or two of a strange
    point size, get the soft fonts.
	(thanks to: gargoyle!congdon)

    I bought recently a version of TROFF "eroff" from ELAN Computer
    Group that runs under XENIX with HP-Laser Jet, LaserJet+ and
    LaserJet II. It is not cheap $795 + shipping / handling, but
    now with the U.S. dollar below 2 guilders it is a bargain for
    you (I am being sarcastic).
	(thanks to: jplcwp!deutsch)

    "tplus" from Textware International is the best of the products
    I've seen, and the middle price of the three.

    Image Network - (somewhere in California) highest price,
    second best quality

    Elan Computers - (*somewhere else in California. I think the
    email address is amdahl!kgreer or amdahl!greer, but I'm not
    sure.) much lower price, quality unexciting but usable.
	(thanks to: ho95e!wcs)

    Elan offers excellent troff support for the Laserjet on HP-UX.
	(thanks to: hpda!hpisoa1!davel)

    A local company, Textware International, sells a port of the AT&T
    Documenter's Work Bench (DWB) including dvi drivers for the HP LaserJet
    and LaserJet+.  We use and like the product.
	(thanks to: maynard!campbell)

    You can purchase the binaries on a tape for a price of 1300 usd
    by sending a telex or mail to our addresses mentioned below
    specifying the machine type (300/500) and by paying freight collect.

    The features of the product (laserjet-i) include:

    1. Setup instructions

    2. LP laser driver script skeleton for rs-232 with the following options:

	-om	manual feed
	-ov	vertical print
	-or	raw (graphics) mode

    3. Bold/underline filter (hp2686a-i) for producing bolding / underlining
       from standard nroff output.  This is added in the driver script when
       one hasn't set the raw mode option mentioned, so users don't see it,
       they can type eg. command:

	nroff -mm infile | lp -dlaser

    4. HP 8-bit character set filter.  The filter is used to change the
       usascii 7-bit characters into national ones.  It defaults to the
       scandinavian charset (quite naturally :-), where eg. usascii '['
       is an uppercase umlaut-A.  You can specify other conversions (eg.
       the dutch one about which I currently don't know anything :-) on
       command line or in an environment variable HP8FILTER.  This is used
       here to create 7-bit finnish documents with command:

	nroff -mm infile | hp8filter | lp -dlaser

       which can be hidden from enduser by creating simple scripts: we
       have them on names 'finlaser' and 'uslaser', which are addendums
       to our product.  If you're using the system in 8 bit mode using
       8-bit vi or similar, this is not needed, but because the hp-nroff
       doesn't eat 8-bit chars on input, I doubt it...
	Petri Launiainen @ Intrinsic Oy
	(thanks to: sibelius!pl)

    Elan Computer Group sells a version of troff, which we use with
    our 9000/550+HP-UX+Laserjet. The system includes eqn, tbl,
    troff, pic and the newest version also has grap. The price for
    our system is close to $2000 now. They include some support for
    European characters.
	(thanks to: hafro!gunnar)

In the mean time, someone asked the same question for IBM-PC.
From the net I took the following reply:

    Elan Software makes an excelent WWB product [for IBM PCOA], including
    ditroff and some drivers. Don't have the paper address,
    but their net machine is ihnp4!chinet!steinmetz!elan.
    Super product and support!
	(thanks to:
	    seismo!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!styx!ptsfa!
	    ihnp4!chinet!steinmetz!davidsen)


Addresses:
	ELAN Computer Group
	410 Cambridge Ave, Suite A
	Palo Alto, CA 94306
	(415) 322-2450
	E-mail: ..hplabs!elan!support

	Textware International
	P.O. Box 14
	Harvard Square
	Cambridge, MA 02238
	(617) UNI-TEXT
	{wjh12,cfib}!textware!brent

	Intrinsic Oy,
	Aleksis Kiven katu 11 C,
	33720 Tampere, Finland
  	Phone: (int) 358 31 132800,
	USENET: pl@intrin.FI,
	telex: 22004 tmpre sf

boulder.UCAR.EDU!cdash sent me a nroff to laserjet filter. If you
    are interested, I'll mail it to you. I'll add my own filter too.

Thanks all for your co-operation!

----
-- 
Johan Vromans                                  UUCP: ..{seismo!}mcvax!mhres!jv
Multihouse Research
Gouda, the Netherlands
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