ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Arthur Ogawa) (02/10/91)
I heard the news that Adobe maintains that they will not post DP to the Mac; the Mac has ATM.... Meanwhile, TrueType will naturally be previewable on the Mac, but TrueImage? No, the Mac doesn't need that; the Mac has QuickDraw. All this is pure speculation on my part of course. And pessimistic to boot. But I just don't see Bill, John, John, and Chuck working together for the benefit of the user too very well lately. And there are significant technical problems. One of the dire limitations of QD is its drawing space, limited to 2^16= 65536 pixels. In order to calculate said pixels to the accuracy of a high-end imagesetter (ca. 3000 dpi), we're talking printing at 2.5% (not available presently) and a page size of only 20 inches square. If, on the other hand, you work at 100%, you're dealing with 72dpi resolution, inadequate for fine typography (my field). This is why, of course, all those DTP apps either klootch their way around the Mac Print Manager with PICT comments (the comments are PostScript code, executed in lieu of the QD code when a PS printer has been chosen), or provide their own, incompatible software like PageMaker does. One of the most dire limitations of the Mac Print Manager is md, more commonly known as Laser Prep. The Macintosh Dictionary (or md) has the job of interfacing the PostScript generated by the LaserWriter driver to the PostScript interpreter. It is presumably this dialect of PS that any DP would have to deal with. And, to tell the truth, md has a well-acknowledged reputation among PS programmers as simultaneously the most widely used bit of PS code and the most poorly written. A possibly apocryphal story has it that the guy at Apple who wrote it has permanent job security---nobody else can touch the code without breaking it. As so often happens, technical problems sprout up alongside political ones. And they feed on each other and both get bigger. In order for Apple to support DP, they would have to abandon their current posture that QD is their sole imaging model for screen and print, they would have to allow a more powerful and accurate imaging model (PS) to co-exist with theirs, and they would have to clean up md. Likewise, Adobe would have to get over thier snit (the rest of the way) and bestow on the lowly Macintosh users that which they have bestowed on users of horsepower (read lucrative) products like NeXT, IBM RISC, Sun, Silicon Graphics, HP, etc, etc. There may be a more poetic, hyperbolic way of stating the point, but this just isn't going to happen anytime soon. But if they did, they should take care of two glaring omissions in the current implementation: 1. Apple should make it so that any file printed to disk (ie, command-F) would be an encapsulated PostScript file, suitable for placement in another document. Or they should provide a Chooser-level driver for this purpose. 2. Adobe should provide a better program than DrawOver---one that will work with any any PICT, not just the feeble few that Adobe picks. Or, more better yet, provide a Chooser-level driver that will allow users to print from their application (whatever it may be) to a file that is openable by Adobe Illustrator, kind of an extension to (1). Please, flames to me, not the net.
MUSJJH@lure.latrobe.edu.au (02/11/91)
Ok, after wasting yet another hour juggling around by a single pixel inorder to try and get the final image to be precisely what it is supposed to be.... How about a software emmulation of Display Postscript on the Mac? Is this possible? Can Adobe produce this as the obvious step up from ATM? Would this require a whole 3rd party OS? Could Apple produce "optional" ROMs which included Display PS for those willing to pay for it. Even if this option were painfully slow, it would be invaluable for the final proofing of documents. Does Apple have plans to create a screen version of TrueImage? Will we have to wait until Apple replaces the Mac to get real fidelity in WYSIWYG? Are there any NeXT users out there with insights upon how good the NeXT implementation of Display Postscript is? ..........Well, I think that's enough concepts to bandy about for one afternoon, let the discussion BEGIN! Jason Hellwege La Trobe Uni, Melbourne, Oz.
klingspo@holst.tmc.edu (Steve Klingsporn) (02/15/91)
TrueImage? I've never heard of such an Apple product, and I'm quite up on Apple products. For those of you who haven't seen System 7.0, TrueType, the font architecture that scales both ON SCREEN and ON THE PRINTER -- on devices of any resolution -- is wonderful. The speed of such scaling is much faster than ATM 2.0, and the "WYSIWYG" capabilities of TrueType are wonderful -- it's much more accurate than ATM's display -- and especially better than any display with "Jagged" fonts that are "scaled (ha) by the OS" Just to clear things up, Steve Klingsporn
favorini-francis@cs.yale.edu (Francis Favorini) (02/16/91)
In article <12824@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> klingspo@holst.tmc.edu (Steve Klingsporn) writes: >TrueImage? >I've never heard of such an Apple product, and I'm quite up on >Apple products. TrueImage is a Postscript interpreter clone due out any time now from Microsoft. (Bought up from Bauer, I believe.) The hold up is supposedly because Apple hasn't sent Microsoft the TrueType rasterizing code, which will be incorporated into TrueImage thus allowing a printer equipped with TrueImage to directly handle both Postscript and TrueType fonts. It doesn't (yet?) have the color and other enhancements found in Adobe's Postscript Level 2. I don't think it would be trivial for Apple to incoporate a display version of TrueImage into the Mac OS. I mean, if it were relatively easy, there would be talk of adding it to Windows 3.5/4.0 or whatever, since they own the code. It seems to me that it would make more sense for Apple and Adobe (and NeXT and your favorite computer companies [even Big Blue]) to jointly develop a next generation display/printing standard. Call it TrueScript Level 3 or something. Hey, maybe the specs could be public domain, like a real standard. Users win because WYSIWYG will really be WYSIWYG. The computer manufacturers win because they get improved compatibility across platforms which makes buyers happy and brings in more money. What about Adobe? Well, they could get screwed if they're not careful. What they have, however, is the best starting point from which to build this standard -- lots of experience in coding the stuff, both for printers and displays. All that code is worth something, and the amount they contribute to the final product could certainly be reflected in license fees. License fees! That's what we hope to get rid of with TrueType, etc. Well, the trouble is that Adobe is a software company not a hardware company. If hardware vendors get together and define a software standard, they still each have there own hardware to sell. If Adobe doesn't get something for their software, they won't come to the party. If they don't show, we don't have a unifying standard, because there is too much PostScript already out there. What's the answer? I don't know. But it probably lies in compromise, the hobgoblin of standards committees. Adobe should get something, but not as much as they were getting before, and more than they would get if they there are two or more competing standards. I mean, if you can get TrueType fonts for free, will you buy ATM? Adobe will definitely lose market share when TrueType really gets here. Is it possible? I hope so, because if it's done right, users win big and the companies win, especially in the long run. So, Apple, Adobe, etc. don't be short-sighted. Look beyond the quarterly reports into the future of computing. Sooner or later you'll have to make peace. -Francis Disclaimer: These are my own ramblings. Scoff intelligently. -- ______________________________________________________________________________ Francis Favorini favorini@cs.yale.edu favorini@yalecs.bitnet ...!yale!favorini