sid@linus.UUCP (Sid Stuart) (10/19/88)
When I first read about the printer for the NeXT machine, I was a tad concerned about the cost effectiveness of shared printers using their approach. The problem is that the NeXT printer accepts bitmap output from the host NeXT computer. Since the host computer is running display Postscript, it is easy for it to generate a bitmap from a Postscript program. This is great for a single user system, since the cost of duplicating processors, one in the computer and one in the printer, is removed. In a shared environment though, it is unlikely that one would want to go to the expense of having a $2,000 printer on each computer. It is also unlikly that one would want to blast bitmaps over the ethernet to the machine with the NeXT printer on it. And it is unlikly that one would want to burden one computer on the net with the task of generating the bitmaps. But, there is a solution. Simply tie your favorite Postscript printer onto one of the NeXT machines through the serial port and SHAZAM!, it's the same thing we have been doing all along, only easier. Since now the Postscript program can be taken from the Postscript display system to send to the Postscript printer without going through a translator like Transcript. sid@linus ps. Several of the above words are trademarked. It is left as an exercise for the reader to recognize which are.
psrc@poseidon.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) (10/24/88)
<"He seemed like such a nice man . . . and then he turned out to be a writer!"> In article <41087@linus.UUCP>, sid@linus.UUCP (Sid Stuart) writes: > In a shared environment though, it is unlikely that one would want > to go to the expense of having a $2,000 printer on each computer. Agreed. > It is also unlikely that one would want to blast bitmaps over the > ethernet to the machine with the NeXT printer on it. Yes, probably. > And it is unlikely that one would want to burden one computer on the > net with the task of generating the bitmaps. Not so! NeXT *must* have come up with a quick way of generating bitmaps from Postscript. If they haven't, the whole box'll be a dog, and they're dead (and this whole group goes away in a year). If they have, then what you've just described isn't much of a "burden". > Simply tie your favorite Postscript printer onto one of the NeXT > machines through the serial port and SHAZAM!, it's the same thing we > have been doing all along, only easier. And more expensive (if, as I've said, making a system do double duty as a print server is plausible), and slower (serial connection at 9.6Kbps plus Postscript interpretation by at most a 68020, vs. DMA and Postscript interpretation by some part of a 68030 plus the "mainframe on a chip"). >sid@linus > > ps. Several of the above words are trademarked. It is left as an exercise > for the reader to recognize which are. What he said. Paul S. R. Chisholm, psrc@poseidon.att.com (formerly psc@lznv.att.com) AT&T Bell Laboratories, att!poseidon!psrc, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.
casseres@Apple.COM (David Casseres) (10/26/88)
In article <545@poseidon.ATT.COM> psrc@poseidon.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes: >... NeXT *must* have come up with a quick way of generating >bitmaps from Postscript. That's what Display PostScript is; the credit goes to Adobe, not to NeXT. David Casseres