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From: stew@endor.harvard.edu (Stew Rubenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: cheap non PS and pseudo PS LWs. A LW-?
Message-ID: <2434@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 22:56:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.2434
Posted: Tue Jun 30 22:56:56 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jul-87 01:13:01 EDT
References: <1793@mhuxt.UUCP> <6224@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.UUCP
Reply-To: stew@endor.UUCP (Stew Rubenstein)
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 34
Keywords: Postscript, clone

In article <6224@eddie.MIT.EDU> zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks) writes:
>In article <1793@mhuxt.UUCP> evans@mhuxt.UUCP (Sukie Crandall) writes:
>>
>>Brian Diehm writes:
>>>Rumors continue unabated in the press about Apple bringing out a low-cost
>>LaserWriter without PostScript. Target price appears to be <$2000. It would
>>have a built-in QuickDraw RIP.
>>...<
>>I agree that a LW- without postscript would be a loose. One thing that may
>
>I don't agree that not having Postscript would make a losing
>laserwriter. It would take too long to spell it out, but it looks as
>though there are very few things that a QuickDraw printer couldn't do.

There are a zillion advanced graphics concepts in PostScript that are
light-years ahead of quickdraw.  It's a shame that PostScript was never
supported properly by Apple - there'd be some dynamite possibilities
if PostScript supplanted QuickDraw completely.

Any graphics system which can't even draw an oval at an arbitrary
angle is not worth beans.  And if you've compared the results of
PostScript's line-joining to the "pen hangs below and to the right of
the current point" nonsense, you'll agree that the results even for
simple graphics are superior.

I only hope that the people making this decision at Apple know enough
about the advantages of PostScript over QuickDraw to make an informed
decision, and that the legal problems of licensing PostScript for the
Macintosh itself (as opposed to in the printer) are not insurmountable.

Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   rubenstein@harvard.harvard.edu       MCIMail:    CSC