shipley@web1d.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter Shipley,,,5492405) (12/09/87)
Can anybody send me a review on the product "xroff"
I was told that this a version of troff that you can preview
using a X display.
Is this product any good? (ie: worth buying?)
Does it do what it claims ( or what I think it does )
Any comment will be appreciated.
Pete Shipley:
email: shipley@violet.berkeley.edu Flames: cc-29@cory.berkeley.edu
ucbvax!violet!shipley ucbvax!cory!cc-29
Spelling corections: /dev/null Quote: "Anger is an energy"paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (12/14/87)
In article <6224@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> shipley@web1d.berkeley.edu () writes: >Can anybody send me a review on the product "xroff" >I was told that this a version of troff that you can preview >using a X display. Xroff is a version of ditroff as ported to lots of oddball OS's (BSD, MSDOS, VMS, etc) by Image Network in Palo Alto or Mountain View or some such. It can be purchased with support for HP-lj[+/II/500] or PostScript(tm) or Xerox 4045 (hence Xroff's name, I believe). You pay more if you plan to use more fonts, CPUs, users, printers, different kinds of printers, etc. >Is this product any good? (ie: worth buying?) I'd look at EROFF (sorry, don't know who makes it or where they are) before commiting to XROFF. XROFF has a few oddball problems at one of my clients that I have never been able to resolve.. I was astonished to learn one day while loaning my CPU to an Image Networks engineer for a recompile of his latest version that the binaries they ship to customers are compiled without optimization... The programmers at Image Network don't trust optimizers, but I managed to get him to leave me an extra set of binaries -- optimized -- because I hate the idea of wasting all those CPU cycles on the stuff PCC puts out without C2. However, since XROFF is not a previewer, you probably don't care how good or bad it is at what it actually IS.. >Does it do what it claims ( or what I think it does ) Nope. I'd try a dvi-to-tektronix (or "old troff" to tektronix) or some other hacked up way to preview things using odd modes of Xterm. There is an X application called Xdvi which will preview the DVI output by Tex, but this is a very different kind of DVI from that output by ditroff (and xroff). Same names, but very different beasts. >Any comment will be appreciated. The other thing to try is some version of TROFF which can speak PostScript(tm) which you can then feed through one of the several Xps programs floating around -- these are PostScript(tm) interpreter/previewers for Xwindows. >Pete Shipley: Paul Vixie paul%vixie@uunet.uu.net
yee@ames.arpa (Peter E. Yee) (12/15/87)
Eroff comes from Elan Computer Group, Inc. Their address is: ELAN Computer Group, Inc. 410 Cambridge Avenue Suite A Palo Alto, California 94306 They can send you an information package and price list for wide range of machines, printers and operating systems (primarily UNIX, but they also support MS-DOS). -Peter Yee yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov ames!yee Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Elan, have never used their product, etc. I happen to have one of their info packs.
kg@elan.UUCP (Ken Greer) (12/15/87)
in article <740@vixie.UUCP>, paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) says: > > In article <6224@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> shipley@web1d.berkeley.edu () writes: > >> Can anybody send me a review on the product "xroff". I was told that >> this a version of troff that you can preview using a X display. > > I'd look at EROFF (sorry, don't know who makes it or where they are) before > commiting to XROFF. XROFF has a few oddball problems at one of my clients > that I have never been able to resolve ... > However, since XROFF is not a previewer, you probably don't care how good > or bad it is at what it actually IS.. > >>Does it do what it claims ( or what I think it does ) > > Nope. > Thanks for the plug, guys. EROFF can be gotten from ELAN Computer Group, Inc. 410 Cambridge Avenue, Suite A Palo Alto, CA 94306 Phone: 415-322-2450 Fax: 415-322-1915 uucp: {ames,hplabs}!elan!support The X windows troff previewer is also from us; this is what the requester was probably refering to. It's called EVIEW/X. It'll run on any CPU that supports X-windows 10.4. (We're working on an X-11 version too.) Ken Greer Elan Computer Group, Inc. -- Ken Greer Elan Computer Group, Inc. 415-322-2450 {ames,hplabs}!elan!kg
giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) (12/18/87)
In article <740@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes: >Xroff is a version of ditroff as ported to lots of oddball OS's (BSD, MSDOS, >VMS, etc) by Image Network in Palo Alto or Mountain View or some such. It >can be purchased with support for HP-lj[+/II/500] or PostScript(tm) or >Xerox 4045 (hence Xroff's name, I believe). You pay more if you plan to >use more fonts, CPUs, users, printers, different kinds of printers, etc. Actually it also works for most cpus including the ones that are not oddball. The pricing is based on the number of users and the size of the printer. Extra fonts and more than one cpu does cost extra. >I'd look at EROFF (sorry, don't know who makes it or where they are) before >commiting to XROFF. XROFF has a few oddball problems at one of my clients >that I have never been able to resolve. Could you please let me know what these problems are? I have xroff and I have not noticed any problems. -- --------------------------------- UUCP: {uunet, ihnp4!umn-cs}!hi-csc!giebelhaus ARPA: hi-csc!giebelhaus@umn-cs.arpa Nobody I know admits to sharing my opinions. I don't even have a pet.
paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (12/20/87)
In article <3923fc62.b263@hi-csc.UUCP> giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes: >In article <740@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes: >>Xroff is a version of ditroff as ported to lots of oddball OS's (BSD, MSDOS, >Actually it also works for most cpus including the ones that are not oddball True. Sorry to suggest that it ONLY worked on oddballs. However, some systems (UNIX, really) are more likely targets for TROFF than others (VMS, MSDOS), and XROFF was the first thing I'd ever heard of that brought TROFF to the oddballs in my life. >>You pay more if you plan to >>use more fonts, CPUs, users, printers, different kinds of printers, etc. >The pricing is based on the number of users and the size of >the printer. Extra fonts and more than one cpu does cost extra. And more that one printer costs extra, and I believe that the charge for 2 type A printers is less than the price for 1 type A and 1 type B. I thought this was a little bit ridiculous when I saw it in the contract, but then it was client money, not mine, and it predated me at the site. >>XROFF has a few oddball problems at one of my clients >>that I have never been able to resolve. >Could you please let me know what these problems are? I have xroff and >I have not noticed any problems. Sure. 'tbl' makes horiz and vert lines; if working at some specific point sizes (but not others), the vert lines come out about 2 inches low on our X4045. I sent the X4045 data stream to ImageNet, and it printed without error on their local X4045. Their ROM's were older than mine. Six months ago, that's as far as the problem resolution went. Nothing since then. I just tell my users to use a different point size.. Also, extremely large files tend to make the XROFF postprocessor loop forever, producing no output, consuming vast amounts of CPU time. XROFF is better than nothing, don't get me wrong. However, I suggest that people looking for a DWB port to their hardware look at alternatives before selecting XROFF -- all DWB ports are not created equal. -- Paul Vixie paul%vixie@uunet.uu.net