rdt@houxv.UUCP (03/11/87)
Why use Xwindows instead of Postscript? Does Postscript work at a higher level of abstraction leading to more bits over a serial line? Richard Trauben ATT Info Systems Holmdel, NJ.
RWS@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP (03/12/87)
Why use Xwindows instead of Postscript?
Does Postscript work at a higher level
of abstraction leading to more bits over
a serial line?
This is a slightly malformed question. X is a window system that
includes a graphics substrate, PostScript is a graphics system.
A better version of your question would be "Why X graphics primitives
instead of PostScript?". One possible answer is that Adobe says they
will be providing PostScript as an extension to X, and Sun says they
will be providing X as an extension to NeWS. Sun has stated that they
would like NeWS to run efficiently over slow serial lines, and they
apparently have (several?) encoding schemes for this purpose, although
I have never seen any details. The X protocol is really geared toward
higher performance communication channels.ken@rochester.UUCP (03/12/87)
|will be providing PostScript as an extension to X, and Sun says they |will be providing X as an extension to NeWS. Sun has stated that they |would like NeWS to run efficiently over slow serial lines, and they |apparently have (several?) encoding schemes for this purpose, although |I have never seen any details. At the risk of generating controversy... The examples I have heard Sun quote involve displays with highly structured content, like Escher's fish drawing. This is something I display everyday (t.i.c., :-)). However I can see that if one can do image manipulation by sending Postcript commands instead of the whole bitmap one might win. So, my question is: do the image processing experts reading this believe that Postscript is an adequate image manipulation language? Personally, I believe slow lines are destined to go away. Bending software around a hardware limitation is not the way to go. Ken