Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!chx400!bernina!mfranz
From: mfranz@bernina.ethz.ch (Michael Franz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: MacOberon Problems
Summary: Help is on the way...
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.143246.9976@bernina.ethz.ch>
Date: 23 Apr 91 14:32:46 GMT
References: <1991Apr18.211531.27329@aeras.uucp>
Reply-To: mfranz@bernina.UUCP (Michael Franz)
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zuerich
Lines: 36

As the author of MacOberon, I should probably reply to this one...

Printing under MacOberon does not produce satisfactory results on
PostScript printers at this point.  This is because at ETH we use a page
description language different from PostScript, and a set of fonts which
do not exist in PostScript format.  The main objective in the current
release of MacOberon was to get the system out to the world with some
workable print mechanism quickly - esthetically pleasing solutions were
out of the question.  Our own MacOberon Macintoshes are all hooked up to
a CeresNet and use the printing services of a Ceres print server (called
Pluto, as you may have guessed).  You have guessed correctly that the
name of the server is simply ignored when printing to a PostScript
printer.

I am currently investigating three different solutions to the printing
problem under PostScript:

1. I could offer a set of font metric files that would contain the exact
   sizes of the fonts that the printer substitutes for the Oberon fonts.
   Disadvantage:  No WYSIWIG, no Oberon fonts on the printer.

2. I could release an interpreter for our own PD language.  The image to
   appear on the page would then have to be downloaded to the printer. 
   Disadvantage:  Huge bitmaps would have to be transferred via slow
   LAN. 

3. Pre-Rastered versions of the Oberon printer fonts could be downloaded
   to the PS device (300 and 400 dpi would be supported).  This would
   produce optimum output and not put too much strain on the LAN.
   (Converting our own outline format to PostScript is out of the
   question, as is on-the-fly rastering on a slow Macintosh).

Option (3) is currently being implemented.  I will inform this newsgroup
as soon as it is available.

Michael Franz