ecf_ulw@jhunix (Lee Watkins) (07/25/89)
I read an ad this morning that referred to GoScript to print postscript output on a DeskJet Plus (we just acquired a DJ+). I apologize if I have missed previous discussion about this product, but I know nothing about it and it sounds interesting. Is it a device, or a software product ( a translator of some sort ); is it commercial or free/shareware? Thanx for any insight!! Lee Watkins ecf_ulw@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu or ...mimsy!aplcen!jhunix
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (07/26/89)
>I read an ad this morning that referred to GoScript to print >postscript output on a DeskJet Plus (we just acquired a DJ+). I >apologize if I have missed previous discussion about this product, but >I know nothing about it and it sounds interesting. Is it a device, or >a software product ( a translator of some sort ); is it commercial or >free/shareware? Thanx for any insight!! GoScript is a commercial product that sells (list, I haven't found a discounter that sells it), for $195. It is a Postscript translater for PC's, a software product. It comes with Postscript fonts supposedly equivalent to Times, Helvetica, and symbol, plus their bold, slanted, and bold-slanted variants (except symbol). For another $200 you get a much longer list of fonts. They are not claiming that it will work with Postscript output from all programs. In particular, setscreen doesn't work. They claim it works with Ventura Publisher, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect 5.0, Aldus Pagemaker, and Borland Quattro. I have tried it with Freelance and it appears to work. I actually bought it to output TeX with imbedded Postscript graphics using dvips or dvialw. When I got it dvialw worked but dvips failed. A phone call to them got a nasty response from their marketing arm - "we don't claim it will work with all programs - sorry, please fuck off". However, I sent them a sample file, which uncovered a trival bug in their interpreter, at least I assume it was trivial since they sent an update two weeks later and now it works just fine. It does indeed work fine. It closely emulates LAserwriter output. However, the TeX output from it doesn't look like the TeX output on the same LaserJet II using dvijep. It looks like the characters are fatter. In fact, the normally thinnish looking CM fonts come out looking like the rather fattish Adobe Times, unless you turn down the darkness control. Then there is the question of the race between getting your output and the end of time. Sometimes it seems that the end of time might come first. This is on a PS/2 Model 80 with 4 megs of memory, EEMS, an ramdisk, etc. For pure graphics, no text, however, it is positively peppy. On a plain PC it would have to be described as "unacceptable". On an 8 MHz AT, a patient person could put up with it, considering the cost. I am happy with it for my uses. Oh yes - it DOES NOT accept Adobe fonts, as you might expect. They claim lots of others are available, however. It DOES take the Adobe NAMES for the Laserwriter fonts, and uses its own similar ones. Doug McDonald