Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!grian!alex
From: alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: 16Mhz Mac Classic?
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.083318.22635@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us>
Date: 11 Dec 90 08:33:18 GMT
References: <1990Dec10.031031.24801@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1990Dec10.192355.7500@umiami.ir.miami.edu> <4278@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Dec11.030108.14247@eng.umd.edu>
Organization: Workman & Associates
Lines: 50

russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:

>In article <4278@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>>In article <1990Dec10.192355.7500@umiami.ir.miami.edu>, gross@umiami.ir.miami.edu (Mondo) writes:
>>> 
>>> Yeah, it seems silly that while Apple wants to join the rest of the
>>> world with all their ways of interconnection that they refuse to add
>>> something as basic as a RS-232C interface.

Everyone's forgotten the most BASIC of reasons to laud Apple's serial
connections: bidirectionality.

Anyone ever try to print to a laserprinter on a PC?  Find out it will
blindly download all the fonts it just downloaded a minute ago, for the
previous document?  Snarl at the 600K preamble to the 2K file?

The Mac, in case you forgot how spoilt you were, will ask the printer a
question--and the printer will answer.  It can tell you what fonts,
trays, paper size, &c, are loaded.  (QMS implements the last two--trays
"tell" the printer what size they are, which in turn goes back to the
chooser dialogue for the printer.  Too slick.)

The PC, and most machines, only get "I'm full--stop sending!" back.  If
that...

The person who creebed about connecting parallel printers over a network
forgot: at least parallel gives you an unambiguous paper-out and
write-fault condition.  And it is MUCH faster, potentially, than serial
communication for those 600K preambles I creebed about above.

That doesn't EVEN address the non-standard RS-232 "standard" which
*EVERYONE* implements utterly differently--as anyone trying to lash a
printer to a PC will tell you.  Fie on RS-232 connections: give me
Centronics (who the HECK mentioned that Centronics was promulgated by
DEC--Centronics is the name of a company fwgawdsakes!) any day.

Or, give me true appletalk printer-inquiries, preferably--at least the
results are worth it.

And note: yes, this is the same Alex who grotches at length about the
Mac.  Whatever else their faults, the design team made the right
printing decisions on the Mac.


	Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
		...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979
		fax: (818) 794-2297    bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3