barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (09/28/90)
Is A/UX going backwards? I haven't even installed A/UX 2.0, and already I am disappointed that Apple is removing features that I believe previously worked. I am referring to A/UX and ImageWriter (and ImageWriter LQ) support. First I find out that the LQ needs an AppleTalk board upgrade. Now I find out from the README file that A/UX 2.0 does not support troff and ImageWriters. Nroff works but troff doesn't. The main reason I need A/UX at home is for troff previewing (A contract writing a Unix book using troff). I had hoped I could use the Mac tools for the drawings, and merge troff with Mac diagrams. Not with A/UX 2! As I can see it, my choices are: 1) use nroff 2) But a Appletalk PostScript printer. 3) Use A/UX 1.1 4) Use Freedom of Press to render 400 pages of PostScript. Apple, tell me this isn't so! Tell me A/UX 2.1 will be released soon with IW LQ support! Tell me you need a beta tester! -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett
rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) (09/29/90)
barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) writes: >Is A/UX going backwards? I haven't even installed A/UX 2.0, and >already I am disappointed that Apple is removing features that I >believe previously worked. You mean like the ditroff-to-ImageWriter driver they had in 1.1? Yeah, I thought that was rather tacky of them, especially as I just bought an ImageWriter II. :-(. >Now I find out from the README file that A/UX 2.0 does not support >troff and ImageWriters. Nroff works but troff doesn't. >The main reason I need A/UX at home is for troff previewing (A >contract writing a Unix book using troff). (Guess that means that telling you to use TeX instead (either OzTeX&DVIM72, or UnixTeX&xdvi&Nelson Beebe's DVI->ImageWriter driver) isn't an option. Pity.) Well, for previewing you can try using xditview, if you've got X Windows and if you can get it working right. (It claims to be a ditroff previewer, but I haven't yet gotten xditview to work as advertised, on either a Mac or an Encore Multimax. It puts up a window, but the spacing of the text is completely bogus. >I had hoped I could use the Mac tools for the drawings, and merge >troff with Mac diagrams. Not with A/UX 2! Not with anybody's troff or ditroff, even with the Ditroff-to-ImageWriter driver in A/UX 1.1. The problem is that Mac drawing programs don't put their output in any form that troff recognizes. (At best, you can get them to put out Encapsulated PostScript, but that don't work too good on a non-PS printer). Now, there is a way you can do pic drawings somewhat more readily than the old standard way (type in your pic code, print out your document, see that it didn't work, hack your pic code, etc.). What you do is use the Xfig program for X Windows to draw your pictures and output them in FIG format, then use the fig2pic program from the TransFig distribution to convert that file to a pic file; you then have a pic file you can include in your ditroff file. >As I can see it, my choices are: > 1) use nroff Ick... > 2) Buy a Appletalk PostScript printer. Ouch! Rather expensive, that... > 3) Use A/UX 1.1 Or just swipe the ditroff-ImageWriter binary off the 1.1 distribution disks and install on 2.0. After all, A/UX 1.1 binaries run on 2.0. Assuming they haven't made some incompatible change in troff, of course. (Of course, if they have, you can always grab a few more files off those old distribution disks...). > 4) Use Freedom of Press to render 400 pages of PostScript. Somehow I doubt this will be overwhelmingly speedy... 5) Use ditdvi (available from the comp.sources.misc archives, I think) to convert ditroff output to TeX DVI format, then use either a TeX previewer (like OzTeX or xdvi) to preview on screen or Nelson Beebe's dvimac DVI->ImageWriter II converter. Problems: only works with straight text; tbl and eqn output doesn't come out right, and pic output isn't supported at all (ditdvi doesn't grok the ditroff sequences for pic, and dvimac doesn't grok the so-called 'tpic specials' commands for picture-drawing that some other DVI drivers support.) It does work fairly well for straight-text documents, I've done it. -- Richard Todd rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us rmtodd@servalan.uucp Motorola Skates On Intel's Head! "Cancelling a posted message means posting a cancel message."-Maarten Litmaath
barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (10/02/90)
In article <1990Sep28.224909.7440@servalan.uucp> rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes: >(Guess that means that telling you to use TeX instead (either OzTeX&DVIM72, or >UnixTeX&xdvi&Nelson Beebe's DVI->ImageWriter driver) isn't an option. Pity.) Yup. Pity. >>I had hoped I could use the Mac tools for the drawings, and merge >>troff with Mac diagrams. Not with A/UX 2! >Not with anybody's troff or ditroff, even with the Ditroff-to-ImageWriter >driver in A/UX 1.1. The problem is that Mac drawing programs don't put >their output in any form that troff recognizes. (At best, you can get them >to put out Encapsulated PostScript, but that don't work too good on a >non-PS printer). Yup. You are right. I guess I am spoiled by the flexibility of PostScript printers. Unless I can convert a MacPaint document into some bitmap document that ditroff can pass thru to some sort of printer driver. It looks like the A/UX system supports MacOS Printer requests. Perhaps I can figure out some way to convert ditroff into Mac format. (Well, maybe if I get desperate.) >Now, there is a way you can do pic drawings somewhat more readily than the >old standard way (type in your pic code, print out your document, see that >it didn't work, hack your pic code, etc.). What you do is use the Xfig >program for X Windows to draw your pictures and output them in FIG format, >then use the fig2pic program from the TransFig distribution to convert that >file to a pic file; you then have a pic file you can include in your >ditroff file. xfig is painful if you don't have a large monitor. >Or just swipe the ditroff-ImageWriter binary off the 1.1 >distribution disks and install on 2.0. After all, A/UX 1.1 >binaries run on 2.0. Assuming they haven't made some incompatible >change in troff, of course. (Of course, if they have, you can >always grab a few more files off those old distribution disks...). This is the crux of the matter. I don't think it is that easy. (Someone tell me I'm wrong!) It seems that Apple added MacOS Printer support. Something is now different. Else why would they REMOVE functionality? Also - A/UX 2 does not support a non-appletalk ImageWriter LQ under the Unix print spooler. Another example of something different. I don't feel warm and fuzzy about this solution. I have a feeling I am going to learn a lot about ditroff and the Unix/Appletalk LQ driver. It sure would be nice if someone from Apple explains why someone who decided to stick with Apple printers got shafted. -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett
einhorn@triton.unm.edu (E Drew Einhorn ADV.SCI.Inc) (10/03/90)
In article <BARNETT.90Oct1174040@grymoire.crd.ge.com> barnett@crdgw1.ge.com writes: >In article <1990Sep28.224909.7440@servalan.uucp> rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes: > > >Yup. You are right. I guess I am spoiled by the flexibility of >PostScript printers. Unless I can convert a MacPaint document into >some bitmap document that ditroff can pass thru to some sort of >printer driver. > Has anybody attempted a port of Ghostscript to AUX? aux.writer2.0 available for anon ftp on aux.support.apple.com provides a chooser device that looks like a laserwriter but sends the postscript to a shell command. Ghostscript could processes the postscript and compute a bit map. Then the only missing piece would be a device driver to ship the bitmap to the printer. I have a borrowed ImageWriter II that has to be returned and am thinking of buying an HP DeskWriter (If I can get it to work w/ AUX). >It seems that Apple added MacOS Printer support. Something is now >different. Else why would they REMOVE functionality? Also - A/UX 2 >does not support a non-appletalk ImageWriter LQ under the Unix print >spooler. Another example of something different. I don't feel warm and >fuzzy about this solution. > Actually what Apple broke is the printer port. Things are supposed to work ok if you put your printer on the modem port and the modem on the printer port -- einhorn@triton.unm.edu
rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) (10/03/90)
einhorn@triton.unm.edu (E Drew Einhorn ADV.SCI.Inc) writes: >Has anybody attempted a port of Ghostscript to AUX? aux.writer2.0 available >for anon ftp on aux.support.apple.com provides a chooser device that looks >like a laserwriter but sends the postscript to a shell command. Ghostscript >could processes the postscript and compute a bit map. Then the only missing >piece would be a device driver to ship the bitmap to the printer. I have >a borrowed ImageWriter II that has to be returned and am thinking of buying >an HP DeskWriter (If I can get it to work w/ AUX). Funny you should mention that :-). Last night I downloaded Ghostscript from osu-cis, and tonight I've been working on compiling it. All I had to do was hack one of the files slightly (it was looking for struct tm in the wrong include file), and it compiled under gcc1.37.91 with no other changes. I've currently got it set up to work on the "X window" device and what I've tried seems to work like a charm, and do so a good deal faster than the version of RALpage I'd been using to preview PostScript output. (Haven't tried any MacOS-generated PS files, but I did do some ditroff output, a PS file from some mapmaking program a friend wanted me to preview for him, and various of the demo PS files that came with it, and it all seemed to work. Even groks the color commands in PostScript; check out the "escher.ps" demo file. Yow!) A friend of mine has an HP DeskWriter and A/UX; I think he said he didn't have any problems getting it going under A/UX. And, as it happens, one of the device drivers that comes with GhostScript is an HP DeskJet driver, which should be just right for you (DeskJet and DeskWriter do respond to the same control code set, I'm told). Obviously, the next order of business for me is to dig down into the sample Epson print driver for GhostScript and the DVI driver for the ImageWriter I/II and come up with a GhostScript driver for the IW II. When I get it done, I'll let you guys know (and probably post it here, too.) >Actually what Apple broke is the printer port. Things are supposed to work >ok if you put your printer on the modem port and the modem on the printer port It works ok with an ImageWriter II; I don't know about an LQ. Assuming the printer drivers aren't too different, it should work too. I might as well point out here another interesting "feature" of the software for non-Appletalk ImageWriters in MacOS-under-A/UX: when you first print from MacOS to that printer, the software apparently opens the appropriate tty device (i.e. /dev/tty0 for a printer on the "modem" port) and locks it, and doesn't close it after it finishes. What this means is that once you print something from the MacOS environment, you can't print anything with lpr (because lpd tries to open /dev/tty0 and fails) until such time as the original locking process (i.e. startmac{32,24}) closes that tty, which only happens when you logout from the Mac environment. Rather uncool, that. Ideally, of course, the ImageWriter, etc. drivers shouldn't be writing to the device directly, but instead allow one to specify a file (or pipe!) as a destination for the output, so you can have *all* printer I/O go through the lpr/lpd system. -- Richard Todd rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us rmtodd@servalan.uucp "Cancelling a posted message means posting a cancel message."-Maarten Litmaath