woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) (11/09/89)
In article <1014@umigw.MIAMI.EDU>, aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) writes: > In article <8911081356.AA26268@terra.oscs.montana.edu> iphwk@terra.oscs.montana.edu (Bill Kinnersley) writes: > > I just received a brochure from NEC describing the LC 890XL > >PostScript printer. > > > It comes with a 68020 processor, 4 Mb of RAM, upgradable to > >8 Mb, and an optional 20 Mb hard disk. The disk "connects to the > >printer's built-in SCSI interface. It increases font storage and > >allows users to cache multiple fonts and overlays." > > Sounds like another Canon engine/Apple controller printer. > > The Apple LaserWriter we have (NTX) also has the hard disk > option available. > > I suspect that it's useful for very very few people to have a hard Well, the hard disk is usefull for more than fonts. Postscript has a feature that is called a font 'cache'. What happens is that when you scale a font and use the letters, the filled in bitmaps are stored in a font cache, and if you ask for a letter that has already been rendered, Postscript will grab the bitmap from the cache, thus speeding the operation up drasticaly. The old laserwriters only had 1.5 meg total, which means that program space, scratch space and font cache had to fit in .5 meg. Newer printers have more memory, so they run faster. They cache more of thier fonts. The cache keeps the most recently used fonts. If you have a document with a small number of small fonts, you will find that the first page after powererup takes significantly longer than all other pages until major font changes occur. The HARD DISK is used to permanently cache fonts. If you have a hard disk, and you have used a font at a particular point size, the bit map will be retrieved off the hard disk, and used rather than re-rendering a font. This speeds things up SIGNIFICANTLY. The major problem is that the hard disk and os are extremely flakey. Don Lancaster report many problems. The good side of this is that Don has published a routine to retrieve the bit maps off the hard disk,and return them to the host computer. this means that you can now get a bit map of a font that adobe has generated, and use it for a screen font.
gerry@dialogic.UUCP (Gerry Lachac) (11/09/89)
In article <1014@umigw.MIAMI.EDU> aem@Mthvax.CS.Miami.Edu writes: > >I suspect that it's useful for very very few people to have a hard >disk for fonts. > Actually this is very far from being true. A hard disk is extremely useful for a Postscript printer. Remember, every time you print something, the printer has to construct a "bitmap" from the font outline. This sucks up processor time. With a hard disk, you can build all the bitmaps that you use, and instead of constructing them each time, you fetch them from the disk. This really speeds things up. Don Lancaster had a good article in an old Computer Shopper about this. -- uunet!dialogic!gerry | "Even a dead plant turns | Dialogic Corporation OR | over a new leaf | 300 Littleton Rd gerry@dialogic.UUCP | when the wind blows." | Parsippany, NJ 07054 | | (201)334-8450