Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!toddpw
From: toddpw@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: postscript word processor for IIGS
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.225322.7498@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 91 22:53:22 GMT
References: <2898@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 24

mspurgeo@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Mike Spurgeon) writes:

>Don Lancaster has been using Applewriter (both DOS 3.3 & ProDOS, I
>believe v2.1) for years to send raw postscript to laser printers.

Yes, but I don't think the PostScript files were generated by AppleWriter --
Lancaster is one of the few PostScript sensei's in existence. To read some
of his columns is to see PostScript explored as a language in itself and
not just 'the thing that makes the printer work'.

>If memory serves, he claims it beats _anything_.  Something like
>56,000 baud out the serial port on a IIe.

That's 57,600 baud out the game port. Lancaster wrote his own printer driver
that toggles one of the Announciator outputs so that it looks like the output
of a serial chip at 57K baud -- run this through an MC1488 or MAX232 and you
have a transmit-only serial port running at 57Kbps.

Lancaster's claim is that the AppleTalk protocols used by the printer in a
shared environment have so much overhead that the overall throughput is less
than a direct 57Kbps serial connection.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu