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From: capslock@wet.UUCP (Allen Crider)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: PostScript vs TrueType?
Message-ID: <1393@wet.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jul 90 02:25:47 GMT
References: <1100.26af57d3@waikato.ac.nz>
Reply-To: capslock@wet.UUCP (Allen Crider)
Followup-To: comp.lang.postscript
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco
Lines: 46

In article <1100.26af57d3@waikato.ac.nz> ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) writes:
>
>
>Does anybody else spot what's wrong with this? It seems to me that
>most current implementations of PostScript takes the form of ROMs
>inside a printer or typesetter.
Yes I know what you mean. The important upgrades in Adobe's interpreters
is more CPU horsepower. I have gone through all Linotype's RIPS from 'one'
to the RIP IV. I'm waiting for Linotypes emerald rip. What I'm saying
is CPU power is increasing as fast as the upgrades to Adobe's interpreters.

>...By contrast,
>for people with lots of fonts, most of those will be on disk rather
>than in a ROM, so upgrading them will be, at worst, a matter of
>returning the old original disks together with the upgrade charge.

Extremely expensive for vendor and user alike. Software vendors want
to be sure you own a legit copy of their fonts, so they have large
databases and people to use them. They have to mail you a letter announcing
the amazing new upgrade. They have to make new disks and documention.
I just got an upgrade for PageMaker 4.0 on the Mac. $150.

>Of course, for those proud owners of NeXT machines with Display
>PostScript interpreters included in the system software, things
>may work rather differently...

<sigh> I'm looking at 18 point Courier as I type this. It is a bitmapped
font. Display PostScript needs anti-aliasing.


>What do other people think of the relative advantages of PostScript
>versus TrueType? 

TrueType is not a complete page description language. TrueType does
not know how to image a circle, or halftone a 24-bit image. TrueType
depends on the host for its CPU, memory, operating system and disk storage. 
Besides, why buy another font library? TrueType doesn't offer enough
of an advantage for me to consider switching. TrueType has been delayed
long enough for me to comfortably call it VAPORWARE. I cannot use it
now unless I find an Alpha System 7. I guess this is because Apple wants
to be sure it works on a five-year-old Mac. 

Apple has lost years of their advantage vis-a-vis MS-DOS by going ahead
with this project.
I suspect they could have bought Adobe Systems for the true cost of TrueType.
I'm glad they didn't.