Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pcrat!rick
From: rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: PostScript Conspiracy
Keywords: Bigger Slower More $$$
Message-ID: <565@pcrat.UUCP>
Date: 1 Sep 88 01:08:56 GMT
Organization: PC Research, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ
Lines: 45

BACKGROUND: I'm a died-in-the-wool pic/troff user. NO FLAMES ON THIS POINT.

PostScript.  The latest printer craze.  I used to drool over the glossies
for these printers.  I wished I could justify the cost.  I couldn't.
I got a LaserJet II instead.  1) Can't print more than 16 fonts per page.
2) Can't always take complex sequences of PCL.  3) Only cost $1600.
(Items 1 & 2 HP should fix in series III. Item 3) doesn't need fixing)

Lately, I've been working with a PostScript based system and PostScript
printers based on the Canon engine.  My chance to see what I'd been
missing.  Fonts scaled to 72 point if I wanted.  Except that I only
use a range of size between say 6 and maybe 16 point, and occasionally
20, 24 and 32 point for viewgraphs.  Dozens of fonts.  Except I only
commonly need about 4 or 5 different ones.  OK, so what about performance.
The PostScript printer should at least do that for me.

WRONG.  troff converted to HP PCL (downloaded fonts and all) is
consistently smaller than the troff converted to PostScript.
Complex "pic" diagrams are fully FOUR times larger in PostScript
than in HP PCL.  That means more data moving to the printer.

And once it gets there?  The HP starts turning out page after
page (after the first page, which usually contains most of the
downloaded glyphs that are needed), at what looks to be close
to the rated speed of the engine.  The PostScript printer dogs
each and every page.  End result? A twenty page doument on the
HP prints fully twice as fast as the same document on the
PostScript printer.

Yeah, there are some nice features to PostScript.  But is it really
worth the extra delay and cost?  The bottom line is to keep
the printer and me busy.  And I'm not busy if I don't have my
document to read and mark up.

IBM would be proud to be able to claim PostScript authorship.  It is
a product that can't help but put people on the migration path
upward -- to faster and more costly hardware!

OK PostScript Folks.  FLAME AWAY.  I've got the trusty HP at my
side.  I can out flame you on paper with both cartridges on the floor.
-- 
		Rick Richardson, PC Research, Inc.
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