Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 7 vits vs. 8 bits (again)
Message-ID: <1990Jun27.201333.10418@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <2414@acorn.co.uk> <1990Jun23.184530.1326@cbnewsl.att.com> <184@heaven.woodside.ca.us> <1363@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 20:13:33 GMT

In article <1363@chinacat.Unicom.COM> woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) writes:
>... My point is and
>has been that Adobe should have made the language fully 8 bit transparent...

The language *is* 8 bit transparent, or approximately so; the problem is
the serial transmission protocol.  What is wanted, rather than inventing
half-assed botches with modem-control lines and the like, is to have the
printer speak a *real* protocol -- say TCP/IP -- over the serial line.
(Yes, Virginia, you can use TCP/IP over serial lines, and many people do.)
Then all the problems -- flow control, error detection, end-of-job marking,
status queries and commands while a job is executing, etc. -- are solved
in one fell swoop.  Best of all, there is no fiddling with modes, and no
chance of leaving the printer in the wrong mode.
-- 
"Either NFS must be scrapped or NFS    | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
must be changed."      -John Osterhout |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry