[comp.text.desktop] PageMaker on PCs

chuq@plaid.UUCP (06/03/87)

From: korn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 87 22:32:22 PDT

We just got PageMaker 2.0 for both Mac and PC, and I decided to test 'em
both out--run 'em through the paces, as it were.

The Mac Plus & DataFrame 40XP combo came out easily 300-800% faster than
the the Epson Equity III+ AT system (10 Mhz) & 30 Mbyte 39 mSec drive combo.

For some reason, even with all the speed of the 80286, and the slightly
faster drive, the combination of MS-Windows and the off-set memory addressing 
the 80286 does for 8088 compatibility slows down graphics screen updates
to an absolute crawl.  I would click on the screen for a text-insertion
point, and then start typing, only to find that I'd overflowed the 10-key
buffer 'cause Pagemaker had yet to load in the font and update all the memory
structures it need to update before it would accept the keystrokes.
Although I haven't used Ventura extensively, from the little I've played
with it on the same PC system, I've encountered some of the same problems
(though not as severe).

It seems as though until a fast, rich windowing system comes out for the
PC (Windows isn't fast, and GEM isn't very rich), and until the PC frees
itself from off-set memory addressing (basically OS/2), the PC won't really
be a very viable desktop-publishing machine--much too slow when compared
to the mac (and about the same price).


Also, for some reason I couldn't seem to get the PC-Pagemaker to read 
Mac-Pagemaker files; nor could I find a conversion utility.  Does anyone
know of such?

Peter
--
Peter "Arrgh" Korn	 			Oh when, oh when will my MacII
korn@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU				 arrive?  Oh where, oh
{decvax,dual,hplabs,sdcsvax,ulysses}!ucbvax!korn	      where can it be?

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