[gnu.ghostscript.bug] Availability of version 1.3?

knight@csli.Stanford.EDU (Bob Knight) (06/28/89)

Is version 1.3 publically available for ftp?  I'd like to obtain it if
possible.

Replies directly to me, please.

Thanks,
Bob

snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy) (07/01/89)

In article <9518@csli.Stanford.EDU> knight@csli.Stanford.EDU (Bob Knight) writes:

| Is version 1.3 publically available for ftp?  I'd like to obtain it if
| possible.

Enough is enough, I'm getting email queries, people are posting queries
here, the official announcement seems to have fallen off the edge of the
world, etc. so I'm posting the info here.  -sigh-

Ghostscript version 1.3 is available via anonymous uucp from illian.
Dial (503) 591-9742, login is "Uanon", no password.  The modem is a TB+
answering PEP-last, so telebit sites should set s50=255 or else you'll
get connected at 2400.  For general info about the illian archive, grab
/usr/public/index and /usr/public/how-to-get.  Illian is not on the
warmongernet,  but I'm sure someone who is will pick it up and make it
available via ftp.

Version 1.3 includes msdos binaries for msdos site lacking the "Borland
Turbo C system".  To save connect time, I split the distribution into
three sections, so you can download only what you need:

Root: /u/public/gnu/ghostscript

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.)

The "tz" means that these are the usual compressed tar archives.

		About the 1.3 release.

Peter said to tell you all to read the history file.  He says that he fixed
the gxfill/find_cross_y bug, which turned out to be an algorithm bug, not
a math overflow/underflow problem.  (yea!)  This was the bug that took chunks
out of some of the characters ('K', 'h', etc.)  There are some new language
extensions, and some things are different internally.  Peter is working
on splitting system/device dependant code into seperate files, as opposed to
using #ifdefs.  There is a new file, gp-bsd.c, which I suspect is really more
like gp-sunos.c.  The documentation mentions the file ugly10.cp, I believe
this refers to uglyfont.cp.  Ghost.doc mentions some planned language
extensions as not being implemented yet.  At least some of these *are*
implemented, and in use. (makedevice, setdevice, currentdevice...)  There
is now a device.doc describing the device driver interface.  One point may be
confusing.  In the description of *_draw_line(), it talks about y0 and y1,
and one being greater than the other.  He is talking about the standard
orientation with the x-axis at the bottom of the image, but both the
x-windows and ibmpc-ega device drivers have the x-axis at the *top*, with
y increasing as you go *down*.  Unix sites should note that lines end in
control-m (msdos-ism?) which confuses more(1) and cc(1) to no end.
Stripping these off improves things a great deal.

I've been beating on it for a week now, mostly adding fixes and extensions
that didn't make it into 1.3.  (Peter is already planning on a 1.4 release
sometime in mid-August.)  H.AIDA's fixes allowing user-supplied fonts didn't
make it in.  Michael Smolenski's fix to allow using stringwidth without a
currentpoint isn't in.  The SunView driver(s) didn't make it in.  The stuff
I sent Peter, including Tek61vp02 and dot-matrix drivers, multiple-device
support, auto-magic loading of Hershey fonts and auto font substitution,
encoding for symbol font, clock function for BSD systems, an improved
color half-toning algorithm, etc. didn't make it in.

I'm currently planning on putting together an *unofficial* incremental
release with most of the stuff that didn't make it into 1.3.  This will
probably be made available via anon uucp from illian.

Thanks to Peter for getting 1.3 out the door before disappearing for a month;
and to Daryl for doing the floppy-to-unix transfer, and for making this
available from his machine.  If anyone wants to flame about the way the
distribution was split into 3 parts, direct them at me.

    _____     						  .-----.
   /_____\    Snoopy					./  RIP	 \.
  /_______\   qiclab!sopwith!snoopy			|  	  |
    |___|     parsely!sopwith!snoopy			| tekecs  |
    |___|     sun!nosun!illian!sopwith!snoopy		|_________|

		"I *was* the next man!"  -Indy