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From: jack@Taffy.rice.edu (Jack W. Howarth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Freedom of Press Light and the
Message-ID: <1990Nov18.224754.27975@rice.edu>
Date: 18 Nov 90 22:47:54 GMT
References: <64240@<1990Nov14> <70400102@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@rice.edu (News)
Organization: Rice University
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In article <70400102@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>ATM is Adobe's last-ditch effort to keep its font standard from being
>replaced.  They sat on their duffs, and were put to shame when Apple
>wouldn't stand for it.  You should have heard John Warnock, president
>of Adobe, break into tears during a speech about adobe's future
>directions and font standards, and the Apple/Microsoft pact.
>
>It's likely that if Apple abandons truetype, Adobe will recall all
>versions of ATM 2.0 from the market shelves.  Just remember that the
>init will probably break under system 7.0, with good reason.  Adobe
>needs an incentive to release ATM for system 7.0.  That's just the way
>things work in the cutthroat world of proprietary corporate america.
>

  I sincerely doubt that Adobe would 'withdraw' ATM in case Apple dropped
truetype. I think Warnock has realized that their is more money to be made in
a larger market of Adobe PS laserprinters and ATM rasters than in the smaller
market they had before. Witness the growth in third party Adobe laserprinters
since ATM was released. Also, Adobe has been very generous with font offers
in ATM upgrades indicating they are seeing the light that a $50 font can
generate more cash than a $250 font in some cases. As to TrueType, even if
Apple changes its mind I doubt Microsoft would. Without Truetype, TrueImage
is just another postscript clone. By the way have you seen the latest ads for
the first trueimage printers. They are software selectable between PCL/Post
Script/TrueImage. 
    Anyway, the announcement of TrueType did cause ATM to be released, but I
want to see if the arrival of TrueType causes Adobe to bring its fonts
down (say to $50) in price. I have looked at third party Bitstream fonts and
am less than impressed. Hopefully TrueType fonts will be a bit more competitive.
Again, all this is nice, but Apple needs to address the short comings of their
imaging system (QuickDraw) soon. With the 68040, we are soon coming to the point
where rastering 300 or even 600 dpi to an output device will not be much of a
strain on the CPU and the need for on board CPU's on inkjets and laserprinters
will decline.
                        Jack Howarth