Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cartridge for Laser Jet with Postscript firmware
Message-ID: <1990Jul31.193834.21747@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1512@rossignol.Princeton.EDU>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 19:38:34 GMT

In article <1512@rossignol.Princeton.EDU> tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes:
>How come an interpreter doesn't run in software?  I know it would be
>slow, but how slow?  Some people can put up with slowness.  Or is it
>due to legal reasons?

Such things do exist, but (a) a cartridge only needs to come in one
version, rather than one per host, and (b) a cartridge is a lot harder
to make unauthorized copies of.

Actually, the cartridge contains software, to run on the printer's own
CPU, but (a) and (b) remain valid.
-- 
The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry