[comp.text.desktop] Hewlett-Packard to Add PostScript Compatibility

chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/01/87)

[Message forwarded from info-postscript]

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>From @Sushi.Stanford.EDU:bellcore!root@seismo.CSS.GOV Thu Apr 30 11:00:51 1987
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 87 12:19:09 EDT
From: bellcore!root@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Hewlett-Packard to Add PostScript Compatibility
To: edu!info-postscript@seismo.CSS.GOV

Hewlett-Packard said it will add PostScript compatibility to its
line of laser printers. "We repeatedly tried telling people why
they may not need it, but we found that approach wanting," said
Steve Simpson, marketing manager of H-P's office printers,
yesterday at an H-P seminar on desktop publishing in New York.
   H-P will probably not support PostScript directly, however.
Instead, it may rely on third-party developers to build emulation
boards that can either be inserted into the host PC or into a
small I/O slot on the new HP Laserjet Series II printer. Simpson
said a PC add-in board offers high performance but duplicates a
lot of the capabilities already in the printer. The I/O slot on
the printer, however, may be too small for an emulation board. In
any event, Simpson said he expects to see PostScript
compatibility available by the end of the year.
   Simpson said PostScript has few advantages over the Printer
Control Language (PCL) already used by all Laserjet printers. One
of the only things that PostScript has that PCL does not is
algorithmic font support, which no desktop publishing software
supports anyway, Simpson said. He claimed PostScript is about 30
percent slower than PCL. Simpson also downplayed the effect of
IBM's recent adoption of Adobe's page-description language.

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Chuq Von Rospach	chuq@sun.COM		[I don't read flames]

There is no statute of limitations on stupidity