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From: mrm@sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed
Message-ID: <1991May31.150743.10649@sceard.Sceard.COM>
Date: 31 May 91 15:07:43 GMT
References: <1991May29.221015.1865@druid.uucp> <7moR331w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Reply-To: mrm@Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy)
Organization: The Mole and Badger Association of Northern San Diego County
Lines: 23

In article <7moR331w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
[...]
>
>No, it's like arguing that Postscript printers should report an error when
>someone sends them an ASCII file, rather than just silently losing the whole
>of the input and leading the user to wonder what exactly is going on.
>
>We have a printer here at work which silently junks any page containing
>bitmap data sent in the wrong format. I think that said printer is profoundly
>badly designed.

You could read the manuals for the printer and find out how to download the
short PostScript(tm) error routine that will barf out a page or so of error
status when a job fails. The program can be modified as desired. Most folks
don't like the waste of paper most of the time. Kind of like wasted bandwidth
(like this posting, too:-) that would result from constant notification of the
poster for a screwed up article.

You can write short test files to see what is wrong. It is allowed. Or you can
just stand in front of the printer with a quizzical look on your face and wait
for the output.
-- 
Mike Murphy  mrm@Sceard.COM  ucsd!sceard!mrm  +1 619 598 5874