Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!adobe!shore
From: shore@adobe.com (Andrew Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: 7 vits vs. 8 bits (again)
Message-ID: <3439@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jun 90 22:08:47 GMT
References: <2414@acorn.co.uk> <1990Jun23.184530.1326@cbnewsl.att.com> <184@heaven.woodside.ca.us> <1363@chinacat.Unicom.COM> <1990Jun27.201333.10418@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: news@adobe.COM
Reply-To: shore@adobe.COM (Andrew Shore)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Lines: 22

In article <1990Jun27.201333.10418@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>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.

A bit of history here.  Would you believe that very early on in PostScript
development (early 1984) we considered having Kermit be a communications
mode on the original LaserWriter.  For a variety of reasons this was
scrapped, but I thought you might find the idea cute.  It would have allowed
8 bit transparent data, however.  Of course, then people would have
complained about the speed :-)

Serial IP is another good idea.  Whose flavor of SLIP do you like?
Or should we have waited for PPP?  Or invented our own?

--Andy Shore
  shore@adobe.com