Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!oz.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely From: jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Decrypting RFC 1125 Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 89 23:12:42 GMT References: <8911240620.AA06208@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: J Greely Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 31 In-reply-to: dave@CITI.UMICH.EDU's message of 24 Nov 89 05:27:00 GMT In article <8911240620.AA06208@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> dave@CITI.UMICH.EDU (Dave Bachmann) writes: > After I had gotten this working I excitedly looked to see if it would work >for the other Postscript RFC's. No such luck. EVERY AUTHOR OF A POSTSCRIPT >RFC HAS USED A DIFFERENT PACKAGE. In fact, the only RFC's that share a common >format are the NTP family. Oh well. Ran a quick check of the four PostScript formatted RFCs I found here (1119, 1125, 1128, and 1129), and there are two macro packages in use, only one of which is worthwhile. 1125 uses pscat from Adobe's TranScript package to post-process troff output into PS (thank you!). The other (GEM-something-or-other) makes non-portable assumptions, mangles the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions, and simply won't print on all PS devices (guaranteed not to print on a NeXT, which is the only system that otherwise would allow it to be viewed on-screen). The EPS figures included look okay, but everything else is bogus. I would suggest that future PostScript-format RFCs be required to conform to the published conventions, or all hell will break loose when someone decides to use BrokenWord, whose output is printable only on a directly-attached Apple LaserWriter (note: I'm not picking on any particular WP package, but there are several that are almost that bad). Unfortunately, there's no PS validation tool, although some ideas are floating around comp.lang.postscript. Call me a purist, but if I can't print it page-reversed, double-sided, two-up, and in signature order, it ain't PostScript. (incidentally, this is the most convenient form I've found for carrying RFCs around; try it, you'll like it) -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)