Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!alicudi.usc.edu!crum From: crum@alicudi.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Microsoft/Adobe/PostScript news Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 91 07:14:21 GMT Sender: news@usc.edu Organization: University of Southern California Lines: 38 Nntp-Posting-Host: alicudi.usc.edu Originator: crum@alicudi.usc.edu Microsoft is apparently canceling it's printer software effort. According to an article I read using the Company News section of Prodigy (which uses Dow Jones News Retrieval service), Microsoft "failed to make a dent in the printer software industry dominated by Adobe." The article didn't mention TrueType explicitly, nor did it mention Apple's involvement with Microsoft and TrueType. The loss of competition might significantly strengthen NeXT's choice of PostScript as one of its supported standards. The PostScript page description language is a very elegant and practical interface level by which NeXT retains compatibility with the rest of the world (and RTF, TIFF, MIDI, and IP/TCP/SMTP/NFS are some other good, usable interfaces). NeXT Corporate Sales (Ken Rosen and Kris Younger) has produced a related document entitled "NeXT and Open Systems Standards", by the way. I assume you can get it from NeXT representatives, if it's not already available by FTP. It's distributed as a PostScript document, of course! Now, let's see edge anti-aliasing (especially for very pleasing horizontal character spacing) and auto kerning become commonplace in NeXT applications, via changes to NeXTstep display servers like the NeXTdimension psdrvr and changes to NeXTstep kits. Silicon Graphics and others, by going with X/Motif for supplying user interface tools to applications, are keeping themselves from this nice technology to some extent. (The X Window System uses pixel-size-relative coordinate systems instead of real-world length metrics like PostScript does, so rendering enhancements generally involve application program changes.) We need to see on-screen representation of documents be very, very pleasing to look at, and use of fine color pixel shades is necessary for this as long as display pixels are around 100dpi (or worse). Hey, do people think that NeXT attachments are acceptable around here (as attachments to USENET comp.sys.next news postings, that is, for things like diagrams)? Gary