Re: A third-party PostScript driver

[mattd@apple.com (Matt Deatherage)]

In article <m0oRkWP-00007ZC@crash.cts.com>, ncp@gnh-cathouse.cts.com (Neal
Pitts) wrote:
> 
> This opens the door for A Third-Party Opportunity.  I would love to see a
> Level II Postscript driver, with the ability to save named files, specific
> printer description files, the ability to download fonts, and of course, GS/OS
> friendly.  Either shareware or published would be great;  I would think a
> price of at least $25.00 shareware would not only be expected, but reasonable.
>  
> Just some of my thoughts, and kudos to the first person/company that brings
> out this driver. :)
> 

You have _got_ to be kidding.  :)

I've been DTS's technical lead for LaserWriter 8.0 on the Macintosh side,
a driver that does just what you want on that other computer, which is
probably where you saw many of the ideas (PPD files, extensive file saving
capabilities, Level 2 PostScript generation, etc).

Some facts about this driver:

1)  It's much larger, in memory and on disk, than the older driver.  This
    isn't as much of a concern for Macintosh owners as it is for Apple IIgs
    owners, many of whom still have 1 MB configurations.

2)  It took a team of extremely talented engineers at Adobe Systems, Inc.
    (the _creators_ of PostScript, both levels) well over three years to
    create, test and release the driver, with full-time engineers and SQA
    engineers, and they had assistance from Apple including the source
    code to the previous drivers.

I know that someone could write such a driver for the IIgs, but they'd
have to be _extremely_ familiar not just with all aspects of printing on
the IIgs, but with all aspects of PostScript, both level 1 and level 2 and
their historical progress so the driver works as well with version 23.0
in the LaserWriter as it does with version 2010.130 in the LaserWriter Pro
630, not to mention the scores of third-party printers for which PPD files
may or may not be available.

If it were to be at all reliable, it would probably take about 6-8 months
of _full-time_ work to develop such a driver given the prerequisites listed
above.  You'd have to sell a few thousand copies at $25/pop to make this
a profitable venture, and I have no faith that a few thousand people are
willing to pay $25 for a new LaserWriter driver that has increased system
requirements and may not add much additional functionality for the majority
of folks with Level 1 printers who don't need PostScript files or color
matching or any of the features Level 2 generation is really designed for.

Not meaning to rain completely on your parade, but "I'll pay $25 for this!"
is something like saying "Someone should rewrite AppleWorks GS from scratch
because my friends and I would pay $40 for it."  You don't know what you're
asking some poor programmer somewhere to do for the cost of a Super
Nintendo
cartridge.  :)

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Matt Deatherage, Developer Support Center, Apple Computer, Inc.
Personal mail only -- please POST technical questions, questions about
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The opinions I express don't represent Apple, which makes us both happy.
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