Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:7939 comp.lang.postscript:473 comp.lang.lisp:844
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!husc6!im4u!milano!hi3.aca.mcc.com!ables
From: ables@hi3.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (King Ables)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.lang.postscript,comp.lang.lisp
Subject: postscript from Symbolics to a laserwriter via a Sun
Message-ID: <295@hi3.aca.mcc.com.UUCP>
Date: 22 Apr 88 17:31:23 GMT
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Lines: 66

We've had an interesting problem with our Symbolics machines lately.
I've cross-posted this to the three groups where people might have
seen this problem before.

We have a laserwriter hooked to a Sun-3 server to which all of our
Unix machines can spool.  We have a Vax-11/750 running Mt. Xinu 4.3
with Chaos hacked into it.  We have a bunch of Symbolics machines in
addition to our Unix machines.  Some of the Symbolics are running
Genera 7.1 and some are running 7.2.

Under 7.1, people could do a hardcopy to the laserwriter which
generated postscript, sent it to the Vax via chaos, who in turn
queued it to the Sun-3 for printing on the laserwriter and all
worked well.

Under 7.2, the same process takes place, but when the output is
printed, only the first two pages are printed.  The rest of the
output is gone.

We've been able to trace the postscript to the Sun server
and it is still intact (i.e. in the same condition as it
was generated by the Symbolics machine).  We have determined
that sometime during the actual sending to the laserwriter is
where things get hosed.  Specifically, it seems that the Transcript
filter psrv is doing something bad.

The Symbolics machine reverses the pages of the output when
generating the postscript.  So, for example, in a 3-page document,
if you look at the postscript generated by the Symbolics host,
you see the pages in 3,2,1 order.  Since everything else needs
to have pages reversed, the laserwriter filters use psrv to
reverse the pages again (for lpr, ptroff, etc.).  We have found
that if we bypass the psrv filter, the output will come out correctly.
But then, of course, ptroff and lpr output comes out backwards.
Interestingly enough, output from FrameMaker comes out correctly
regardless of whether or not we are bypassing the psrv filter!!

So, after all this, I have two questions...

	1) has anybody seen this behavior before or know what might
	   cause it?  We can't even decide where to lay blame (whether
	   it really is something wrong with psrv in the Transcript
	   software from Sun, for which we of course don't have the
	   source or whether the Symbolics is generating slightly
	   bad postscript code which as long as it isn't moved around
	   happens to work but when things are rearranged doesn't work
	   anymore.

	2) Does anybody know why FrameMaker output DOESN'T get
	   reversed when bypassing the psrv filter?  If there is 
	   something that can be put into the postscript to ignore
	   pagereversal, then perhaps we could just put that in on
	   the Symbolics side and the problem would be fixed.

I am very hesitant to hack a fix into something before I know
who is really doing the "wrong" thing.  I'd like to fix what
is wrong, not patch what is right for a special case of something
that is broken.

I would appreciate replies directly to me and I will, of course,
summarize.... comp.unix.wizards is the only one of the three groups
this message is heading towards that I read.

Thanks for any info.
-king
ARPA: ables@mcc.com
UUCP: {gatech,ihnp4,nbires,seismo,ucb-vax}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!ables