Re: GraphicWriter III v2.0

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4i46iq$3r4@cello.gina.calstate.edu>,
LA County Outdoor Science School <lacoss@cello.gina.calstate.edu> wrote:
>nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates) writes:
>>    Ouch. Postscript interpreters tend to be rather big, huge, and
>> unwieldy thing. Especially when they can fill up many MB of ram on the
>> printer while decoding pages-- something that's not quite an option on
>> the GS.

>Well, if it is that hard, why can Publish It do it?  If an 8-bit program 
>can do it, why can't a GS program?

   An 8-bit program has total control over everything. If it's
printing to a _postscript_ printer, it can feed an EPS file into the
postscript feed, and the printer will deal with it correctly. You
can't print an EPS graphic to a non-postscript printer this way; it
has no clue what to do with it.

   On the other hand, the GS uses some of the same programming
ideologies that the mac has: to support all printers _equally well_,
programs print everything to a (rasterized) buffer, and then the
driver sends commands to the printer to print that buffer. If
something will print on an imagewriter, it'll also print on a laser
printer (neglecting color, obviously). There is no known way to shove
EPS files in the middle of printing, because only the laserwriter
driver knows or cares about postscript.

   Yes, this isn't as nice as it could be. But, to support a
consistent interface for printing and avoid tech support craziness
("This thing prints on my laserwriter, but won't on my imagewriter.. I
demand you fix it RIGHT NOW"), and inconsistencies, I can't really
blame them. The only way around this is a hacked up Laserwriter driver
(i.e. not from Apple) and a hacked up page layout program that supports
the hacks in your driver.


>My understanding is that the postscript interpreter is in the PRINTER, 
>not the PROGRAM.

   Yep. But since there's this intermediate rasterized stage, then
stuff is converted to postscript, it does matter where an interpreter is.

Nathan Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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