Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!rpp386!woody From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Using a postscript printer for previewing? Summary: the insides Keywords: unlisted instructions, lasertalk PC Message-ID: <17433@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 12 Dec 89 14:52:13 GMT References: <28@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> Distribution: comp Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX Lines: 51 In article <28@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz>, ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar) writes: > In article pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: > >OK, I called Emerald City, and LASERTALK is NOT available for the PC, > >only the MAC. The technical representative thinks that a new header is > >placed on an EPSF file, and SHOWPAGE is replaced by an undocumented > >function whose access and description were purchased from Adobe. > > > This is very interesting, as I have in my hand an FAX from PICA > Australia, giving details and price for Lasertalk PC available NOW > (price $995 Australian - halve to obtain US pricing). When I rang the > company, the sales rep - who seemed to know Postscript quite well - said > that he had been using it for some months. > > Re the showpage hidden ops. Presumably Adobe will publish them when > they release full font details. Would anyone from Adobe like to > comment? > > One option to find these special "unlisted" instructions is to dump the > ROM contents using the PEEK operator posted a couple on months ago. If > you look around, you can see the table containing all of the commands. > Most of these are listed, but there are some very interesting others. > When I tried some of these, I found that I was locked out (some cursing > in the general direction of Adobe Corp. ensued...), but some others > worked. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the desire to chase > this further. You will also find a ML montior at the start of the ROMs. > It would be nice if somebody could figure out hot to get into it. > > > D The Redstone monitor is indeed in the roms. It turns out that on version 38.0 and below, you can download s1-s9 records and alter registers. on ver sions above 38, you have to change a couple of bytes in the roms to make it available. I have the details for starting the monitor. It takes a special connector for the outside of the computer's serial port. I have some of them available fo $15.00 u.s, along with some documentation on the ml monitor. rather crude, but does work. There is a reference to a peek operator that was posted previously on this group. Does anyone know where I can get a copy of it? Many of the internal undocumented functions reside in an internal dictionary. Decrypting any adobe font (there was a decryptor that is floating around somewhere) will give you a magic number that unlocks internaldict. The newerones have goodies like superexec which bypasses nearly all invalid access messages (fonts still give you invalid access). There are several other neat and useful functions available also. I arrived at these quite independantly of Adobe. Cheers Woody Baker Postscript hacker, and consultant.