Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!oster
From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Laserwriters vs. Transfer modes
Keywords: Laserwriter postscript modes regions
Message-ID: <26879@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 19 Nov 88 15:03:12 GMT
References: <6496@csli.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 19

In article <6496@csli.STANFORD.EDU> wilson@csli.UUCP (Nathan Wilson) writes:
>Could someone in the know with regard to PostScript or LaserWriter drivers
>please explain why it is that the LWII NTX doesn't support all the transfer
>modes rather than just srcCopy and scrNotCopy?  And why it doesn't support
>regions?

Postscript was written by Adobe, not Apple. Adobe only provided the
transfer modes it provides. As for regions, they are one of Apple's big
trade secrets. There is a cute story about the invention of regions. Steve
Wozniak had been in a plane crash in the Santa Cruz mountains and lost his
memory. (Wow, imagine being a multi-millionare and not remembering it.
Imagine knowing the 6502 instruction set but not your own name.) Bill
Atkinson, after much struggle, awoke one morning with the secret of
regions suddenly clear in his head. Driving to work, he was in a car
crash. When Steve Jobs came to visit him in the hospital, he reassured
Jobs that he still remembered the secret of regions.

Yes, I know, it isn't that big a secret, nor that big a deal. But
technical realities and marketing realities are two different worlds.