geirp@ulrik.uio.no (Geir Pedersen) (05/10/90)
I am looking for a Postscript interpreter producing a plain bitmap or something on TIFF or G3 FAX format. It should run on a Unix box, be stable, be able to use downloadable fonts, and in all other respects behave like a grown up PS interpreter. We are planning to use this to enhance the functionality of the Computer to Fax service about to be offered by the Computing Services dept. for the University. What we have implemented so far is a general system accepting text files to be faxed through our (home made) distributed print spooling system. We would like to offer the possibility to send PS documents produced, say on a Mac, (nearly) as easy as sending a plain text file. In our system faxes are sent through a box connected over a serial line to a Unix machine. (For those interested: The product is manufacted in England by a company named Data & Control Equipment Ltd., and I think the product there sells under the name FaxBox. It has a fairly advanced built in system for queuing faxes, sending, and reseding failed faxes. It will accept text, low resolution (Epson format?) bitmaps, and high resolution bitmaps on G3 FAX format.) I am aware of at least one product that does something like what I am after: GammaScript from GammaLink (+1-408-744-1430). However this product only runs on PCs, and seems to depend on a fax board from the same company for sending faxes. One last point: As we are going to use the output of the PS interpreter as input to our fax system, the interpreter only needs to be able to produce output with the particular horizontal and vertical resolution used by faxes. E.g. the coarse resolution is 3.85 pixels/mm in the vertical direction, and approx. 8.03 pixels/mm in the horizontal direction. Geir Pedersen University of Oslo Phone: +47-2-453482/3470 Computing Service Fax: +47-2-455778 Postboks 1059 - Blindern 0316 Oslo NORWAY