Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!oliveb!sun!sordid!mms
From: mms%sordid@Sun.COM (Michael Silverstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PostScript Interpreter for the PC
Summary: It works, but it's slooooooooooooow
Keywords: PostScript, printers
Message-ID: <83724@sun.uucp>
Date: 4 Jan 89 18:48:09 GMT
References: <8904@mhuxu.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: mms@sun.UUCP (Michael Silverstein)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 42

In article <8904@mhuxu.UUCP> poc@mhuxu.UUCP (Paul O'Connor) writes:
>*> 
>*> 
>*> 	A product called "GoScript" is being advertised in PC
>*> magazines. Sold by LaserGo, Inc., it purports to be a PostScript
>*> interpreter for the PC that can output to dotmatrix and laser
>*> printers. Anybody have any information or experience with this?
>*> 
>*> 				Paul O'Connor
>*> 				AT&T Bell Labs
>*> 				Reading, PA
>*> 				mhuxu!poc

I have this product and have used it successfully to print Postscript
output from various desktop publishers on my Epson LQ. The results
are quite acceptable for a dot matrix printer; do not delude yourself
into thinking that you will get laser quality on the cheap.

The most serious drawback is the speed (or lack thereof). On my 286
machine, Norton SI rated at 11.5 with a 39 msec disk, an average page
takes 40 minutes to print (no typo: I said FORTY minutes per page).
Reason: the product implements virtual memory on the disk to construct
the bitmap. The maker includes a few demo programs which run much
faster than this, but they are contrived.

If you do decide to buy it, here's a couple of tips regarding use with
an LQ printer like mine:

1. Use the 360x360 mode rather than 360x180, especially if you have
half tone graphics. The quality is noticeably better, and the additional
time is only about 5 minutes per page. For some reason, the manual
implies that there's a larger time penalty with 360x360.

2. Make sure that the paper feed to the printer is completely free
and smooth. Any binding or constriction causes raster lines to appear.
Even feeding from a tightly packed fanfold stack can cause this. 


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