Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!heights!jiro From: jiro@heights.cit.cornell.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Adobe Licensing agreement precludes writing printer drivers... Message-ID: <1990Jun17.070423.14826@heights.cit.cornell.edu> Date: 17 Jun 90 07:04:23 GMT References: <12281@june.cs.washington.edu> <18947@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Organization: Cornell Information Technologies, Workstation Resources, Ithaca, NY Lines: 42 In article <18947@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> jasmerb@mist.UUCP (Bryce Jasmer) writes: >I believe that Jiro (author of Cassandra) is working on this and might even >have something complete. I think he is going to name it RIP (raster image >processor) and it would allow you to print postscript to your Imagewriter. >That is about all I know so you will have to ask him for more details. Well, I had e-mailed the original author since my USENET connection had been weak, but it seems ok now, so here is my reply. yes, I ahve been working on RIP! DMP for the last two months or slow. Development has stopped due to the fact that I am away from my NeXT rigth now. It will continue again in the Fall. The answer is "yes it is posssible." NeXT's lawyers don't want you to go above 150 dpi. The argument that whether or not you can try to get around this is mooot and would put you and your clients in BIG trouble. I have written the alpha prototype of RIP! DMP onto Draw producing RIP! Draw. It produces 72 dpi output and 4 true grey levels at PRGB (Printer Ribbon GOes Bad) quality. I could raise this to 144, but it doesn't seem worth the effort since 72 dpi is fine for DPMP output. The printers it supports are the Apple Imagewriter and Epson LX series. The beta might take a while. The problem is as follows. Making it a standalone frontend that accepts postscript and then dumps the bitimage to Serial A is easy (that's what Rip! Draw does). But making a transparent filter that gets piped through when lpr runs is a bit more difficult. The problem is that lpr only likes 7 bits. There must be some flag somewhere but i haven't had time to look for it. In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if some commercial venture hasn't already started on this. - Jiro nakamura ps. Wherever I am in the world, heights will forward my mail to me. pps. Sorry for the typos, the transpacific line is great, but doesn't have much bandwidth. ppps. Obviously I have not said all I know. I am under some restrictions both from NeXT and myself. Sorry. :-( -- Jiro Nakamura jiro@heights.cit.cornell.edu (usually) Independent NeXT Developer ac6y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (unusually) 493 Ellis Hollow Crk. Rd. jiro (BIX) Ithaca NY, 14850 Tel: (607) 253-0691 Fax: (607) 253-8525