brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) (04/06/91)
I was probably a little harsh on Sun for what I saw the other day, but I tend to over-react. The person who contacted me from Sun (I won't say who because he didn't say that I could) agreed that if he had seen what I had seen he wouldn't have been pleased either (paraphrasing). The net result is that the screen coding has been changed internally and is still being checked out. Now, since the Openwindows code is also used with NeWSprint, I don't know at this point if it take a new OpenWindows or just a new NeWSprint to cure the problem. He didn't say and I have asked. I managed to hit the right combinations of screening and shading to make the poor parts stand out. A great test program in scrntst.ps, using the three compare wheel portion of the code. It really shows up the bad parts. The end result is that what I am working with now will not be how it ends up in the future. Complaints like mine will hopefully get the software group the take another look at what is going on with the code and it seems to me that the software group was already doing that before I moaned out loud. I have heard from a couple of other users about printing problems as well, but I seem to be the first to voice an opinion. I'm not sure why I seem to find programs that bring out the best in other people's code, but the PostScript stuff that I have, either mine or someone else's, seems to show up the bad things. The Sun NeWSprint group is not sitting around doing nothing, they are very concerned about what I had to say. If you are looking into the getting the product, or already have the product, it will be changing, as all software improves with age. Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for improvements without having to change the hardware. I do like the idea of having the PostScript being software driven instead of hardware driven and look forward to the improvements. Don't get me wrong on this point. Don't think that I am going to have Sun take this stuff back, if anyone got that impression. No way. We like the technology and will work with Sun in improving the software. Obviously what I may think of as an improvement may not be thought of as one by Sun, but at least we talked about it. What I find interesting is that Sun is willing to talk via e-mail. Try that with Lotus, MicroSoft, IBM, etc., and you won't get anywhere. I am impressed. Another problem is with the NeWSprint enscript replacement. He didn't know of the problems and will be passing on bug reports on it. Just to let you know what I have found wrong so that when you try it you won't think that you did something wrong. 1) First off there isn't a man page. You have to look at the shell script to see what enscript is really going to do. 2) It isn't 100% compatible. The -G (gaudy) option is missing. It is one of a few, but I like using -G. 3) The -2r options do not work. With old TranScript you are supposed to get a landscape printout with two pages to a page, with each half being smaller text than the normal single portrait page. The idea here is to save paper by printing out one sheet of paper instead of two sheets. The NeWSprint version of enscript actually calls up pr and does two column mode. Ah, that means two columns in portrait mode with the normal sized font. Not exactly the same. The two columns even tend to run together. The whole thing is very difficult to read. So if you see this, it ain't you. To Sun's credit, they did incorporate mpage, which will give rotated two pages/page printout, but it doesn't label the page with the little header line that enscript does. Mpage also doesn't allow for use of the bold font, while enscript does. Our programmers like printing source code using 2-up bold text. Neither the new enscript nor mpage will allow for this. Stay tuned for further details. This is an exciting product that WILL improve with age. Maybe they should have asked me to beta-site this product before it was released :-) But, I know that at that time I wouldn't have had the PostScript programs that I do now that would have made what I see now, seen then. With PostScript the combinations for testing are unreal, but I manage to always find something. :-( -- harvard\ ucbvax!uwvax!astroatc!ftms!brown rutgers/ INTERNET: spool.cs.wisc.edu!astroatc!ftms!brown
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) (04/07/91)
In article <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: >I was probably a little harsh on Sun for what I saw the other day, .... >The net result is that the screen coding has been changed internally.... >The end result is that what I am working with now will not be how it (be)... >in the future. Complaints like mine will hopefully get the software group... >The Sun NeWSprint group is not sitting around doing nothing,... >Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for >improvements without having to change the hardware. I do like the idea >of having the PostScript being software driven instead of hardware driven >and look forward to the improvements. Don't get me wrong on this point. >What I find interesting is that Sun is willing to talk via e-mail. Try that >with Lotus, MicroSoft, IBM, etc., and you won't get anywhere. I am impressed. I disagree on both points. The more postscript code is 'handled' the more problems there will always be with it. There are several risc postscript processing cards for different print engines (most noteably is the HP's). The increase in performance is intense. SUN, COULD have done the same thing, either with the sparc generator or any other chip (the work has been done by others for the i960). However, for whatever reason, sun felt that the SPARCprinter was their 'solution'. They totally wrote off postscript and wne their own way. My thought is that they did it to save the cost of adobe licensing. SUN's solution has it's strong points, and it's weak points as well. In my mind, the weak points overpower the strong points. In spite of it's (own) weakpoints, postscript has the very nice ability for me to see a 300 DPI DRAFT before shipping the final output off to a high resolution printer (like a linotype 1,000 tp 30,000 DPI) for final output. Now, with a Sparcprinter, I don't know that what comes out will be exactly the same (minus the dpi difference). Postscript hardware upgrades to new postscript version or features / capabilities doesn't HAVE to be the way they were (are) because of apple. SUN/apple could easily make supply provide firmware upgrades IF THEY CHOOSE to. The upgrade price for firmware upgrades has been ridiculous because it's been a virtual monopoly. The same will be true for software versions, just mark my word. SUN and others love it because now they can 'sell' upgrades on tape and the hardware costs in the field are nill. It also seems so much easier to keep selling upgrades and people stand in line to buy new tapes to fix the defects of the last tapes. The % of people that are willing to wait out for bigger upgrades or other sources drops vastly, making more profits for sun (or whom ever...). There is nothing special about SUN having a email address, and replying/ taking messages/bug reports. MOST larger computer companies (hard/soft-ware) have the same thing. DEC, Wordperfect, Borland, INtel, are only a few... al -- Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE
ne201ph@prism.gatech.EDU (Halvorson,Peter J) (04/08/91)
In article <1991Apr7.020109.11882@rodan.acs.syr.edu> amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes: > > I disagree on both points. The more postscript code is 'handled' the more >problems there will always be with it. There are several risc postscript >processing cards for different print engines (most noteably is the HP's). >The increase in performance is intense. > >-- >Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University Check out the prices on these risc card equiped postscript printers. The educational price on the SPARCprinter ( equal to other companies list prices) is $1700. This is for a 12 ppm ( real throughput), 400 dpi printer. I'm sure that the cards you mention must add up to more than $5000 for a similar printer. The software is buggy, as is almost any first release. Sun is already doing News ( screen postscript), so it must have seemed like a small job to extend it to dumping rasters to a printer. Peter Halvorson -- Nuclear Engineering Program Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ne201ph Internet: ne201ph@prism.gatech.edu -- peter@fission.gatech.edu -- Peter Halvorson -- Nuclear Engineering Program Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ne201ph Internet: ne201ph@prism.gatech.edu -- peter@fission.gatech.edu
mday@mondrian.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Mark Day) (04/08/91)
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes: (Intro text deleted...) >However, for whatever reason, sun felt that the >SPARCprinter was their 'solution'. They totally wrote off postscript and >wne their own way. My thought is that they did it to save the cost of adobe >licensing. SUN's solution has it's strong points, and it's weak points as >well. In my mind, the weak points overpower the strong points. I don't think that this is a completely fair statement. A little historical perspective may be in order. NeWSprint and the SPARCprinter seem to be an attempt by Sun to leverage the work that Sun put into developing a PostScript interpreter for its windowing system (Openwindows, nee NeWS) into a printer product. From my own recollections from early talks about NeWS given by Sun engineers (don't even consider taking this as gospel), at the time that NeWS was being developed, Adobe was not interested in developing a version of PostScript for CRT displays. Since Sun was interested in developing this technology, they had to go their own way. An Adobe license wasn't an option at the time. Why Sun and Adobe didn't come to some type of technology sharing agreement once they both became interested in the same basic goal is a deep, dark secret that will probably never be released to us unwashed masses. It sure would have made things easier on us application programmers who would only have had to worry about one flavor of PostScript for workstation displays instead of the current two (Display PostScript and NeWS). >it's (own) weakpoints, postscript has the very nice ability for me to see a >300 DPI DRAFT before shipping the final output off to a high resolution >printer (like a linotype 1,000 tp 30,000 DPI) for final output. Now, with a >Sparcprinter, I don't know that what comes out will be exactly the same >(minus the dpi difference). In a perfect world, all PostScript interpreters would create the exact same output, given identical input. If Sun's version produces different output than a true Adobe interpreter, then I would hope that the Sun would consider this a bug, and fix the interpreter. Until there is some way of certifying that an interpreter adheres to a more rigorous standard than simple Red Book compatiblily, we will all have to decide for ourselves if the advantages of a certain interpreter/platform outweigh the disadvantages of not having the Adobe seal of approval. > The upgrade price for firmware upgrades has been ridiculous because it's >been a virtual monopoly. The same will be true for software versions, just >mark my word. SUN and others love it because now they can 'sell' upgrades >on tape and the hardware costs in the field are nill. It also seems so much >easier to keep selling upgrades and people stand in line to buy new tapes to >fix the defects of the last tapes. The % of people that are willing to wait >out for bigger upgrades or other sources drops vastly, making more profits >for sun (or whom ever...). Since the NeWSprint software is so closely tied to the windowing system used by Sun workstations, I don't think upgrade cost will be a problem. Although Sun charged for initial versions of the NeWS windowing system, their policy of late has been to ship a right to use license for this software with every CPU they sell. My guess is that future updates to OpenWindows will only cost a small media fee. (If only Sun would adopt this policy for their OS...) -- Mark Day Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry mday@picasso.mmwb.ucsf.edu University of California, San Francisco ..ucbvax!ucsfcgl!mday Voice: (415) 476-5326 FAX: (415) 476-0688
bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee) (04/08/91)
In article <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: > >are very concerned about what I had to say. If you are looking into the >getting the product, or already have the product, it will be changing, as >all software improves with age. > >Stay tuned for further details. This is an exciting product that WILL improve >with age. Here are a couple of further suggestions for improvement from a different perspective. 1) Allow third party screening. If Sun is trying to compete with Adobe they could put hooks into Newsprint to allow independent developers to use their own software or hardware screening approach. 2) Make banding work. (I don't know that it doesn't, I'm just assuming). If people ever want to drive higher resolution devices (like film recorders for instance) they will need to have display list creation and banding as options. -- Rob Bradlee w:(508)-658-5600 X5153 h:(617)-944-5595 AGFA Compugraphic Division. ...!{decvax,samsung}!cg-atla!bradlee 200 Ballardvale St. bradlee@cg-atla.agfa.com Wilmington, Mass. 01887 The Nordic Way: Ski till it hurts!
pauld@stowe.cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) (04/08/91)
In article <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: > >Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for >improvements without having to change the hardware. I do like the idea >of having the PostScript being software driven instead of hardware driven >and look forward to the improvements. one nit-picking detail - all PostScript systems thus far are software driven. The only different about the Sun system is that the software runs on the host, rather than on a processor installed in the laser engine. If you were using 386/AT systems, there are and have been for some time, a number of these type of systems available. How well they work depends on what you wanted to do with them, but its worth noting that some of the faster PostScript implementations are still done in this way (Birmy, and the YARC/Pipeline implementations being two cases in point). Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@cs.washington.edu> UW Computer Science Lab ``to shatter tradition makes us feel free'' -- Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@cs.washington.edu> UW Computer Science Lab ``to shatter tradition makes us feel free''
pauld@stowe.cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) (04/09/91)
In article <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: > >Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for >improvements without having to change the hardware. I do like the idea >of having the PostScript being software driven instead of hardware driven >and look forward to the improvements. one nit-picking detail - all PostScript systems thus far are software driven. The only different about the Sun system is that the software runs on the host, rather than on a processor installed in the laser engine. If you were using 386/AT systems, there are and have been for some time, a number of these type of systems available. How well they work depends on what you wanted to do with them, but its worth noting that some of the faster PostScript implementations are still done in this way (Birmy, and the YARC/Pipeline implementations being two cases in point). Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@cs.washington.edu> UW Computer Science Lab ``to shatter tradition makes us feel free'' -- Paul Barton-Davis <pauld@cs.washington.edu> UW Computer Science Lab ``to shatter tradition makes us feel free''
rodgers@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu (04/09/91)
In <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: >I was probably a little harsh on Sun for what I saw the other day, but I tend >to over-react. I'm a fairly patient type, but had a similar reaction to the ditroff support offered within NeWSprint 1.0... >The end result is that what I am working with now will not be how it ends up >in the future. Complaints like mine will hopefully get the software group >the take another look at what is going on... >Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for >improvements without having to change the hardware. >Don't think that I am going to have Sun take this stuff back, if anyone got >that impression. No way. We like the technology and will work with Sun in >improving the software. >What I find interesting is that Sun is willing to talk via e-mail. Try that >with Lotus, MicroSoft, IBM, etc., and you won't get anywhere. I am impressed. We feel the same way. The NeWSprint development group has been very responsive to our numerous complaints and bug reports, and we continue to work with them. However, I do feel that this sort of thing should have happened at a much earlier stage (i.e., Sun should have sought out sites like ours and yours to do some serious beta testing prior to the formal release of the product). Cheerio, Rick Rodgers R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D. (415)476-2957 (work) 664-0560 (home) UCSF Laurel Heights Campus UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cca.ucsf.edu!rodgers 3333 California St., Suite 102 Internet: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu San Francisco CA 94118 USA BITNET: rodgers@ucsfcca
uad1077@dircon.co.uk (Ian Kemmish) (04/09/91)
> > [Discussion of pro's and con's of PS imageing with Adobe/non-Adobe > RIPs in the printer/in the computer] > Sun's enthusiasm for fixing NeWS bugs in response to e-mail lasted less than six months. If you want some horror stories, talk to anyone who ported an early version of NeWS. Since I am on the side of the customer, I *hope* Sun's attitude has changed now and that they really will do a good job of supporting NeWSprint. However, this being the real world, I shall believe when I see it sustained. Lord, I hate being typecast as a cynic:-) -- Ian D. Kemmish Tel. +44 767 601 361 18 Durham Close uad1077@dircon.UUCP Biggleswade ukc!dircon!uad1077 Beds SG18 8HZ United Kingdom uad1077@dircon.co.uk
brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr8.162224.4441@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes: <In article <41@ftms.UUCP> brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: <>Having a SPARCprinter verses a PostScript printer engine will allow for <>improvements without having to change the hardware. I do like the idea <>of having the PostScript being software driven instead of hardware driven <>and look forward to the improvements. < <one nit-picking detail - all PostScript systems thus far are software <driven. The only different about the Sun system is that the software <runs on the host, rather than on a processor installed in the laser <engine. If you were using 386/AT systems, there are and have been for <some time, a number of these type of systems available. How well they <work depends on what you wanted to do with them, but its worth noting <that some of the faster PostScript implementations are still done in <this way (Birmy, and the YARC/Pipeline implementations being two <cases in point). I'll nit your pick. Yes, the PostScript that is in printers like the Apple LaserWriter series is done with software. BUT, when put into the printer, it is firmware, not as hard as the printer itself, not as soft as a program on a hard disk, but firm, as in an PROM device. Being firmware makes it more difficult to change. If one isn't a hardware type engineer, one doesn't change the ROM set. With the NeWSprint setup, the PostScript interpreter is soft and easily changed with an update tape. In the UNIX world, the only choice has been physical printers with the Post- Script built in firmware. With the NeXT, the PostScript was changed to soft- ware. Now, with the Sun, it too has been changed to software. I've known of boards for the PC, but don't they have the PostScript on an PROM as well? -- harvard\ att!nicmad\ spool.cs.wisc.edu!astroatc!vidiot!brown Vidiot ucbvax!uwvax..........!astroatc!vidiot!brown rutgers/ decvax!nicmad/ INTERNET:vidiot!brown%astroatc@spool.cs.wisc.edu
brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) (04/09/91)
In article <rodgers.671131751@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu> rodgers@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu writes:
<
<We feel the same way. The NeWSprint development group has been very responsive
<to our numerous complaints and bug reports, and we continue to work with them.
<However, I do feel that this sort of thing should have happened at a much
<earlier stage (i.e., Sun should have sought out sites like ours and yours
<to do some serious beta testing prior to the formal release of the product).
I would have liked to have been a beta site, but there are things that wouldn't
have let us be one; lack of the SPARCprinter and IPC, until just recently;
lack of the PostScript files that I had that found some problems.
If I would have had this stuff earlier, I may have been able to help out. I
have to be realistic in that it would have been impossible. As they say,
timing is everything.
--
harvard\ att!nicmad\ spool.cs.wisc.edu!astroatc!vidiot!brown
Vidiot ucbvax!uwvax..........!astroatc!vidiot!brown
rutgers/ decvax!nicmad/ INTERNET:vidiot!brown%astroatc@spool.cs.wisc.eduexnirad@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (Nirad Sharma) (04/10/91)
brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: >I've known of boards for the PC, but don't they have the PostScript on an >PROM as well? >-- > harvard\ att!nicmad\ spool.cs.wisc.edu!astroatc!vidiot!brown >Vidiot ucbvax!uwvax..........!astroatc!vidiot!brown > rutgers/ decvax!nicmad/ INTERNET:vidiot!brown%astroatc@spool.cs.wisc.edu There is a product by QMS called JetScript which is a board that sits in a PC expansion slot and has its software downloaded at PC boot time from the hard disk. -- Nirad Sharma (exnirad@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au) Phone : (61 7) 365 7575 Systems Programmer Fax : (61 7) 870 5080 Continuing Education Unit The University of Queensland. QLD 4072