[comp.protocols.appletalk] Using CAP 5.0 lwsrv with WriteNow

dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (05/27/88)

I've brought up portions of CAP 5.0 on my Sun 3/60 (we use the 9/87 version of
KIP... could somebody perhaps email me a more recent one?  We don't have FTP
access).  As an experiment, I'm running lwsrv as an alternative to using TOPS
Spool.

The 5.0 version of lwsrv works much better than the 4.0 version I tried some
months ago.  The new "automatic LaserPrep capture" feature is very nice
indeed... it took 95% of the pain out of getting the prep-file into the right
place, and the instructions on editing the file and removing the hex-code were
very helpful.

One note on this latter process... the prep-file is stored with carriage
returns separating the lines, and Unix editors tend to want to see newlines.
GNU Emacs made short work of this difficulty: "meta-X replace-string return
control-Q control-M return control-Q control-J return" did the trick.

I find that it's necessary to specify the "-T makenondscconformant" option to
lwsrv to get it to work properly with WriteNow version 1.7.  It appears that
WriteNow (or the LW 4.x driver?) generates some font-name aliases "on the fly"
(they appear in Page 1 of my sample 4-page document);  if the resulting file
is fed through psrev, the LaserWriter tries to use these aliases before it
sees the definitions for them, complains, and substitutes Courier.  Not good.
I don't know whether the same situation occurs with other word-processors or
page-layout systems... but I wouldn't be too surprised.

The "makenondscconformant" option wouldn't be necessary if we weren't equipped
with TranScript and using psrev.

I've looked through the new papif.c code, and I like the restructuring... the
new filter-forking mechanism is more general than the one I hacked in here
(ditto the fix for the "cannot rewind a pipe!" problem for Masscomp systems).
I haven't installed the new papif yet, 'cause I like our local
PostScript-based banner generation and error-logging stuff better than the
.banner-based mechanism supported in Release 5... I'll probably hack my
logging/banner code into CAP 5.0 papif at some point.

Nice work, Charlie!

By the way... I noticed a very interesting tidbit in comp.sys.mac.programmer
earlier this week:

 From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein)
 Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
 Subject: Re: System Tools  6.0
 Message-ID: <10941@apple.Apple.Com>
 
 In article <1660001@hpiacla.HP.COM> steve@hpiacla.HP.COM (Steve Witten) writes:
 >Can you outline the highlights?
 
 Sure, except this is going to be from the point of view of a user, since I
 am not familiar with the internal changes.  

		(( much stuff cut out... dcp ))
 
 The disks come with the AppleShare workstation code (version 1.1).

This is _very_ interesting news!  If the System Software 6.0 disks come with
the AppleShare client, then it will be possible to use CAP's aufs file-server
without having to buy a separate (and non-cheap) copy of the whole AppleShare
package just to get a legal copy of the client.  I'm intrigued by this change
in distribution... I suspect that it has to do with Apple's new policy of not
licensing its system software to third-party developers (Apple now says "Have
your users get/buy the software from Apple dealers", or so I've been told).
This change will probably add to CAP's popularity!

I'm gonna get my hands on the 6.0 package ASAP, and if it does contain
the AppleShare client I'm definitely going to bring up aufs on our Sun
systems!  We've got a good deal of free disk space :-), but we're a startup
company and I can't currently justify paying out $700 (including discount!)
just for the AppleShare client code :-(
-- 
Dave Platt                                             VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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