tower@AI.MIT.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (07/03/89)
[ This software will soon be available for anonymous uucp on
osu-cis and anonymous ftp on gatekeeper.dec.com. ]
[ Note Peter is on vacation for about two more weeks.
His mail is being saved! ;-} ]
1) Forwarded-For: ghost@aladdin.com (Peter Deutsch)
[ I hobbled this text together, don't blame any poor editing
on Peter. -len ]
Ghostscript 1.3 is now available for anonymous ftp from
prep.ai.mit.edu in file /u/emacs/ghostscript-1.3.tar.Z.
This release lacks many of the features I was hoping to include
(specifically, the ability to read BDF or other readily available
fonts) but it does fix a number of bugs and provide a few new
features, and I thought it would be better to get it out now rather
than wait yet another two months (which is my target date for release
1.4).
The 1.3 data from history.doc is appended at the end.
Send bug reports to bug-ghostscript@prep.ai.mit.edu or gnUSENET
newsgroup gnu.ghostscript.bug (but not both; they are the same thing).
2) Forwarded-For: Snoopy <nosun!illian!sopwith!snoopy@sun.com>
Ghostscript version 1.3 is now available via anonymous uucp from illian.
Peter says he has fixed the gxfill/find_cross_y bug which was responsible
for incorrect painting of some of the characters ('K', 'h', etc.). Yea!
A list of changes and fixes can be found in history.doc. Some of these
changes are non-trivial. Peter ran out of time before leaving on a month
long world tour. Therefore: No testing was done on the X-windows device.
The Sunview driver(s) didn't make it in. The big pile of stuff I sent,
including Tek61vp02 and dot-matrix drivers, multiple-device support,
Hershey font support, BSD time functions, and a new color half-toning
algorithm didn't make it in. Not all of the recent fixes posted to
gnu.ghostscript.bug made it in. Peter is planning on a 1.4 release
sometime in mid-August.
The 1.3 release includes binary for msdos systems, since not everyone has
the "Borland Turbo C system" which is required to compile it. To save
on connect time, I have split the package into three pieces, so that
you can download only the files you need:
Ghostscript version 1.3
source: floppy from L. Peter Deutsch, floppy_to_unix transfer by Daryl V.
McDaniel, packaged by Snoopy
Root: /u/public/gnu/ghostscript/gs_1.3_*
Files:
gs_1.3_rundoc_tz - runtime support and documention. 51221 bytes
(everyone needs this)
gs_1.3_source_tz.? - source code and makefiles. Three parts, 1-3.
Parts 1 & 2 are 102400 bytes, part 3 is 59903 bytes. (All unix
sites need this, msdos sites wishing to make modifications need this.
Note that msdos sites need the Borland Turbo C system, version 1.5
or later to compile this.)
gs_1.3_msdos_tz.? - Files needed only by msdos sites. Three parts, 1-3.
Parts 1 & 2 are 102400 bytes, part 3 is 8383 bytes. (Unix sites do
not need this. All msdos sites need this. Includes executables
for msdos sites without the Borland Turbo C system.)
To reduce the deluge of mail, the phone number for illian is 503-591-9742,
the anon uucp account name is "Uanon", with no password. You may dial in
anytime (24 hours/7 days). There is a 'soft' time limit of 40 minutes
during the day and 2 hours at night. ('Soft' meaning it doesn't kick you
off until the current file has completed.) Telebit sites should set s50=255
to avoid connecting at 2400 bps.
These are the usual compressed tar archives. I've started working on
bringing this up on sopwith, and I found that the lines all end with
control-m, which confuses more(1) and cc(1) to no end. (must be a msdos-ism)
Stripping these off makes cc much happier.
Peter is working on splitting system/device dependant code into seperate
files, to avoid #ifdefs. I suspect that the file gp-bsd.c is really
more like gp-sunos.c. The documentation mentions the file ugly10.cp,
the code uses uglyfont.cp. Ghost.doc lists some new operators as not
yet implemented (makedevice, setdevice, currentdevice...). Some/all
of these are implemented, and in use. The drivers.doc file explaination
of *draw_line() may be confusing. He is talking about the standard
orientation with the y origin at the bottom of the page. However, both
the X windows and EGA drivers have the y origin at the top, and increasing
going down.
You can reach the author (Peter) at ...{uunet,parcplace.com}!aladdin!ghost.
(Note that Peter will be off the net for 3-4 weeks.) Flames about the
packaging should be directed at me (Snoopy).
_____ .-----.
/_____\ Snoopy ./ RIP \.
/_______\ qiclab!sopwith!snoopy | |
|___| parsely!sopwith!snoopy | tekecs |
|___| sun!nosun!illian!sopwith!snoopy |_________|
"I *was* the next man!" -Indy
3)
This file, history.doc, describes the changes in the various releases of
Ghostscript.
This file applies to version 1.3 of Ghostscript. For an overview of
Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see README.
Version 1.3 (6/20/89)
===========
This release should have had a lot more things in it, but time pressure
and the already long delay in getting it out made it necessary to push it
out the door in an incomplete state (e.g., no testing on X systems
whatsoever).
Interpreter
-----------
Makes -d and -D equivalent on the command line. Adds a new switch -s / -S
that defines a name as a string rather than a token.
Arranges things so that if -sLIB=_a_prefix_ is defined on the command
line, (filename) run will look for _a_prefix_filename before giving up if
filename isn't the name of an accessible file.
Changes showpage from an operator to a procedure. The definition of
showpage in ghost.ps does a copypage, beeps the console, waits for the
user to type a character (normally a <return>, since line buffering is
always enabled), and then does an erasepage and an initgraphics.
Adds a new initialization file, gdevs.ps, containing device-dependent
parameters. The default window size for X Windows is properly set to 612
x 792, i.e., 8.5" x 11".
Adds a new optional initialization file, statusd.ps, that provides dummy
definitions for the names found in statusdict on LaserWriters.
Adds a new operator, getenv, to get information from the shell
environment.
Adds a new predefined operator, defaultdevicename, that returns either (X)
or (EGA) according to how the interpreter was built.
Adds a new type, devicetype, and new operators deviceparams, getscanlines,
makedevice, makeimagedevice, and setdevice. Changes currentdevice to
return a device object rather than a set of parameters.
Makes the scanner recognize reals with 'e' exponent notation, and handle
reals with more than 9 digits.
Fixes a bug that made names starting with digits read incorrectly.
Fixes a bug in the exp operator that made it not pop its first argument
from the stack.
Fixes a bug in the rand operator that made it return negative values about
half the time.
Fixes a bug in equality comparison (eq, ne, and several other operators)
that made unequal operator objects occasionally appear to be equal on DOS
systems.
Fixes a bug in the bind operator that made it not work on packed arrays.
Changes the internal representation of dictionaries so they can be
expanded or contracted dynamically. Adds a new operator, setmaxlength, to
change the allocated size of a dictionary.
Changes sstorei.h so that non-DOS compilers don't encounter the #pragma
directive used by Turbo C.
Restores the display mode (on MS-DOS systems) when exiting.
Fonts
-----
Makes undefined characters in the standard font display as tilde rather
than blank (or causing an error). Unmapped character codes (those mapped
to .notdef in the encoding) still display as nothing, per the PostScript
manual.
Library
-------
Adds a new header file, gxbitmap.h, with some new documentation describing
the internal storage format for bitmaps.
Makes numerous internal changes in the character / font cache, affecting
many of the routines in gxcache.c.
Fixes a bug in gz_draw_line / gz_fill_trapezoid that made nearly
horizontal lines display wrong.
Fixes a bug in gs_scale that made scaling not work if the coordinate
system was rotated or skewed.
Extends the font cache so it will handle characters rotated by multiples
of 90 degrees.
Changes the second argument of gx_path_bbox and gx_path_is_rectangle to be
a gs_fixed_rect * rather than a fixed [4].
Changes gs_matrix_rotate so it handles multiples of 90 degrees as a
special case.
Changes the definition of the gx_device structure to accommodate the new
device operators, and adds corresponding library calls.
Changes the type for a device color index from int to gx_color_index
(equivalent to unsigned long). ***NOTE***: this affects existing clients
and drivers in a non-trivial way on MS-DOS systems.
Changes gs_malloc and gs_free to take a client name string as an argument.
Usage procedures
----------------
Changes the compilation rules for Unix systems to not use the -o and -c
compiler flags together, to be compatible with more versions of cc.
Changes the gcc makefile to use $(GCC) rather than gcc as the compiler
name.
Moves the -1 flag for the MS-DOS compiler from the cc*.bat files to the
makefile.
Changes CCDEBUG to CCFLAGS, and adds ASMFLAGS, in DOS makefile.
Adds -DFOR80386 and /DFOR80386 to enable use of 80386 instructions in
assembly code on DOS systems.
Merges the DEBUG and gs_DEBUG switches. There is now only a single DEBUG
switch that affects both the interpreter and the library.
Adds a new compilation switch, -DNOPRIVATE, that makes private (static)
variables and procedures public for debugging and profiling (only needed
on DOS systems).
Adds the DOS executable (gs.exe and gs.map) to the distribution fileset.
Adds new platform-specific code files, gp-*.c, for a few things like
reading the clock.
Adds a new documentation file, drivers.doc, that describes the interface
between Ghostscript and device drivers.
enjoy -len