lishka@UWSLH.SLH.WISC.EDU (Chris Lishka (King Arthur's roommate)) (02/14/90)
I am taking the crash course in Postscript (i.e. I've already read the Blue Book (twice in the past few years), just read the important Red Book chapters, currently reading the Green Book). I am very impressed with how truly device independent postscript really is. This brings up an interesting question. Has anyone written a general postscript interpreter which is truly device independent? I am thinking of a PS interpreter which would read an input stream and write out a file which is a one (or multiple) bitplane image (in some standard/reasonable format). It could take simple command-line arguments for the device resolution (in dots-per-inch, both x *and* y coordinates) and the final "device" size (in inches; e.g. 8.5" x 11" for a standard printer). This would be an extremely useful tool, and would fit well into the "UNIX philosophy". One could then write programs to translate the bitmap file to a specific device (e.g. LaserJet, Epson, X11 window, etc.). If this has been done, then please forgive my ignorance. I don't know too much about GhostScript (by the Gnu folks); maybe this is what it does. Commercial versions would also be nice. .oO Chris Oo. -- Christopher Lishka 608-262-4485 "Somebody said to me, `But the Beatles were Wisconsin State Lab. of Hygiene antimaterialistic.' That's a huge myth. John lishka@uwslh.slh.wisc.edu and I literally used to sit down and say `Now, uunet!uwvax!uwslh!lishka let's write a swimming pool'."--Paul McCartney