Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:1587 comp.lang.postscript:1700
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!labrea!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!tektronix!sequent!ccssrv!ccsrd14!andrew
From: andrew@ccsrd14.UUCP (Andrew Grant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Gratuitous incompatibility with NeXT postscript printer?
Message-ID: <253@ccsrd14.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 89 03:15:25 GMT
References: <509@gonzo.UUCP> <17633@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: andrew@ccssrv.UUCP (Andrew Grant)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Control-C Software, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 24

In article <17633@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> hess@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Caleb Hess) writes:
>
>	I recently began trying to use our NeXT printer.  So far I have 
>found no problems with printing plain ASCII text files, but have been 
>unable to use some PostScript programs which work on other printers.  For 
>example, Doctor Laser (published recently in comp.lang.postscript) does 
>not show any available fonts, although the rest of the page is printed (the 
>benchmark test result is quite good).
>	Also, Anders Ulfheden's showfont program (published recently in 
>comp.lang.postscript) simply vanishes.  I have tried loading Adobe's error
>handler, but it too apparently vanishes without effect, as no error pages
>have ever been printed.
>	Are these programs doing things that aren't legitimate, or is
>the NeXT PostScript interpreter a bit wimpy?

I spent an evening 'playing' with a NeXT machine, a large chunk of which 
was spent using Yap to examine the Display Postscript interpreter. In the 
short time a had to look at it a noticed several incompatiblities between 
the Display Postscript interpreter and the interpreter in Apple Laserwriter.
Yes the NeXT PostScript interpreter is a bit wimpy.
Most applications generating Postscript assume they are talking to a
Laserwriter, so they won't work with the NeXT printer. The need for
Laserwriter compatiblity rather than Postscript compatiblity is the reason 
that so few Postscript 'clones' are currently available.