Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lsuc!sq!lee
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: other page description languages
Message-ID: <1991May30.033650.14005@sq.sq.com>
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <13682@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: Thu, 30 May 91 03:36:50 GMT
Lines: 37

Kevin Andresen (kevina@apple.com) writes:
> [...]
> Interpress (note no capital P!) was the "precursor" to PostScript in the 
> sense that it was developed in part by some of the principals at Adobe 
> while they were at Xerox.  They shared an imaging model but had different 
> design goals [...]

> [...] Interpress supported color 
> sampled images before PostScript, and more generally!

Perhaps, in a sense.

The biggest three downfalls of the Xerox printers, as I see it, were probably:

* Xerox's poor marketing

* Interpress variations between printers

* Xerox's poor marketing

What I mean by the middle point is that individual printers speak a *subset*
of Interpress.  For example, when driver by ethernet the 3700 cannot receive
downloaded fonts, but it can when driven in native mode.  This sort of
restriction and incompatibility between printers and modes within a single
printer means that it is almost impossible to write a simple program to
drive all Interpress printers.

On the other hand, it isn't too hard to write PostScript that works on most
or all of an *amazing* variety of devices.
Yes, perhaps Level 2 PostScript will change that.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin, lee@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, +1 416 963 8337
the barefoot programmer