Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!media-lab.media.mit.edu!masaru From: masaru@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Masaru Sugai) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: An interesting idea... Keywords: laser printer PostScript NeXT Message-ID: <5745@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Date: 28 Apr 91 10:40:50 GMT References: <3867@dali> <1991Apr26.134120.18412@convex.com> Reply-To: masaru@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Masaru Sugai) Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA Lines: 39 In article <1991Apr26.134120.18412@convex.com> swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) writes: >Commodore should come out with a combination laser/fileserver with very little >memory on board. It would have space for two 1/2-height 5-1/4" devices (ie a >large, cheap harddrive and a tape drive). One partition on the harddrive >would be the laser device partition. When your postscript job prints out it >would send its output to this partition via SCSI (although it would think it >was talking to the printer itself). The printer engine would read the raster >image directly from the disk as it was printing. Really ? I don't like all-in-one peripheral device like 'tower of printer':) I don't see any demands for such integrated I/O device, and 3000T could be a better platform to start with. I understand that all virtue of Amiga comes from its memory/bus architecture and it makes Amiga the champ of video and emulation among personal computers. IMHO, C= should concentrate on high performance controller boards boosting the power of existing Amigas. For example, I hope SCSI-2 controller (A2092?), as it supports standard command sets for various i/o devices such as printer and scanner. I guess we can take advantage of such controller in a few years as we enjoy huge SCSI HD right now. BTW, I don't mind future controllers bypass CHIP memory entirely in favor of performance. I opted for A3000/16 by 'maximum 50MHz clock speed' on Zorro III. Another issue is data compression, but it seems to be a bit further though. On the software side, we could expect lots of things now that Post 1.6 has released with source codes. Some guy referred previewer in greyscale to cope with low resolution on monitor. With ECS, we can have the dimension (1008x800) on A2024 similar to NeXT, and more (up to 2MB) in 16 greylevel or CMYK. I would like such PostScript previewer making usage of 040. > _. >--Steve ._||__ DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own. > Warren v\ *| ---------------------------------------------- > V {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.com >-- -- -- Masaru Sugai:Use disclaimer. CIS 72050,2141:NeXT + A3000 = money-eater NEC Corporation:sugai@ccs.mt.nec.co.jp DORMANT:hardwired logic,machine language MIT R.Affiliate:masaru@media-lab.media.mit.edu: "Silicon on Sapphire" by CLASH