gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (01/04/90)
Hi, The laserwriter NTX (basic configuaration 2 Meg) of our group is connected to a Apollo DN4500 unix machine through serial connector. It does not allow postscrip graphics printing when the file is bigger than 1 Meg for a page. So, do we need memory upgrade? How can we buy the memory upgrade kit? The manual says that I can add 2 meg, 4 meg, 6meg, ... upto 12 meg. Suppose I have a graphics file which has 4 meg in size per page. How much do I need? Is the laserwriter NTX not really usable with its basic configuration? I mean, "practiacally speaking" for postscript graphics printing. Thanks for any info. Hugh
woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) (01/06/90)
In article <136800005@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>, gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > > a Apollo DN4500 unix machine through serial connector. > It does not allow postscrip graphics printing when the file is bigger than > 1 Meg for a page. do you mean the image is > 1 meg, or the Postscript code that produces it? 1 meg is HUGE for a postscript program. Sounds like some one needs to look at the code if that is the case.. > > So, > do we need memory upgrade? Remember, the 2 megs of memory are split between the page buffer (about 1 meg) the font chache and program space. Typically, you will have about 400K-600K for program (VM) space. IF your programs are very large, you need more memory. I have a hard time believing that a PS program could be 1 meg in size, unless it had LOTS of bitmaps in it. One thing that you could do in that case, would be to image the bitmaps first, then send the remaining portions of the program such that you only have small chunks. That would require some fairly careful work. I have seen some large 100-300K programs generated from Auto Cad. The SCOOP demo is one of them. If you truely have 4 mbyte pages, then I'd guess you'd need 6 megs total memory. I can assure you that the printer at 2 meg is quite useful. People mostly need memory to download fonts. It might be quite possible to get large page descriptions if you are downloading many fonts on the fly with it. Perhaps it would help to download the fonts to the printer persistantly > How can we buy the memory upgrade kit? The manual says that I can add > 2 meg, 4 meg, 6meg, ... upto 12 meg. Suppose I have a graphics file > which has 4 meg in size per page. How much do I need? > > Is the laserwriter NTX not really usable with its basic configuration? Yes. > > > Hugh
eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding) (01/08/90)
In a recent article woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) wrote: >Remember, the 2 megs of memory are split between the page buffer (about 1 meg) >the font chache and program space. Typically, you will have about 400K-600K >for program (VM) space. IF your programs are very large, you need more memory. >I have a hard time believing that a PS program could be 1 meg in size, unless >it had LOTS of bitmaps in it. I have PS programs that are 13 MB in size. They have no bitmaps, just 180,000 gray-filled triangles. Takes about 4-5 hours to print on a LaserWriter Plus (mostly due to the 9600 baud serial line). I assume that adding memory would not make a difference in my case. If I had a way to render the PostScript into a bitmap and send that I would do it, since my calculations show a bitmap for the whole page would be only about 1 MB, about 1/10 the size. ++Eric Fielding
woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) (01/08/90)
> I have PS programs that are 13 MB in size. They have no bitmaps, just > 180,000 gray-filled triangles. Takes about 4-5 hours to print on a LaserWriter > Plus (mostly due to the 9600 baud serial line). I assume that adding memory > would not make a difference in my case. If I had a way to render the PostScript > into a bitmap and send that I would do it, since my calculations show a bitmap > for the whole page would be only about 1 MB, about 1/10 the size. The laserwriter+ was not a fast machine. font chaching is not going to help you any here, and no memory upgrade will help you. As a matter of fact, that particular printer is not expandable. I would suggest, since you have no centronics interface, that you try a higher baudrate. Don lancaster runs one at 57Kbaud, but it only works unidirectionaly, reliably. However, 19,200 and 38.4Kb should be achievable. You can set the serial port up for those baudrates, and it should make a GREAT deal of diffrence. looks like the 13 mb file would take 3.7 hours tranmission time at 9600 buad, approx. at 19,200 it should take about 1.8, and at 38.4 it should take about .9. These are extremely rough estimates, but if you have any significant amount of data to do, it would pay you to go to a higher baudrate. Your machine should be able to handle it. Alternatly, perhaps you could re-arrange the data to compress it a bit. If you had a transparent i/o channel so you could get all 8 bits through, there are several compression techniques that you could use to squeeze the file down in size. The printer can unpack the data. Perhaps there is one that would work in 7 bits, but how to handle the special control characters is the real problem. Good luck...... Cheers... Woody > > ++Eric Fielding
shore@adobe.com (Andrew Shore) (01/12/90)
In article <136800005@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >The laserwriter NTX (basic configuaration 2 Meg) of our group is connected to >a Apollo DN4500 unix machine through serial connector. >It does not allow postscrip graphics printing when the file is bigger than >1 Meg for a page. > >So, >do we need memory upgrade? I can't believe no one else has suggested this as a possible cause/solution yet.... I don't know id the DN4500 uses a BSD-based line printer spooler but... The 4.X BSD Unix line printer spooler (lpd,lpr and friends) has a printcap-based limitation on the size of spooled files. If NO "mx#" field exists in the printcap entry for the printer, then the default spool file size limitation is (according to the SunOS 4.0.3 man pages) 1000 BUFSIZE blocks. Often this is 1 Megabyte. Some versions of lpd will reject files over that size, others may just truncate. If you put an entry of the form "mx#0" in the printcap entry in question, all size limits are removed (of course, there is the amount of free space in the file system of the spool directory...). If the printer is remote, suitable "mx" entries must exists in both local and spooling-host printcap files. Other Unix-based spooling systems may impose similar restrictions. Does your problem happen will ALL postscript files over 1MB (independent of # of pages) or just on files which contain a single page over 1MB? Let me know if this was the problem. --Andy Shore shore@adobe.com -- Andy Shore Adobe Systems Incorporated shore@adobe.com {decwrl,sun,apple}!adobe!shore