Newsgroups: comp.text
Path: utzoo!censor!geac!sq!lee
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: troff postprocessors for ISO 8859 characters
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.210305.22789@sq.sq.com>
Keywords: dwb, postscript
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <1990Dec28.195703.2749@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 21:03:05 GMT
Lines: 33

npn@cbnewsl.att.com (nils-peter.nelson) writes:

>Our plan would be to provide support for the European standard
>(ISO 8859-1) character set only with the PostScript postprocessor,
>dpost.  [...]
>So, my question is, have the Europeans settled on PostScript as
>a standard for printers, or is there something else we should
>be supporting?

Speaking as somone who until very recently worked in a UK Unix company,
I would say that the LaserJet is literally orders of magnitude more
widespread.  The hight cost of PostScript printers, coupled with the high
mark-up involved in shipping to Europe, means that PostScript has not made
anything like the market penetration it seems to have achieved in North
America.  Small companies to whom we sold (sq)troff were more likely
to have LaserJets then LaserWriters, probably since the former could be
obtained for under (the equivalent of) US$3,000 in the UK, whilst Post-
Script printers started at a little over US$6,000.

I do feel that it might be worth your while investing in a little Market
Research.  [But perhaps I shouldn't be giving clues to the competition :-)]

And, as Chris Lewis points out, there is no reason why you shouldn't at
least compress the HP fonts if there are so many.  The AF ad AD sets used
to come with a reasonable Latin-1 (Roman 8) character set.  With a careful
font downloading scheme and a good driver, a LaserJet can easily out-perform
most PostScript printers for most common jobs.


Lee

-- 
Liam R. E. Quin,  lee@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, +1 (416) 963-8337