Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!vax5!n65j
From: n65j@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: TOPS, PCs & MACs
Message-ID: <17976@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: 17 Feb 89 23:08:21 GMT
Sender: news@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Reply-To: n65j@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Steven Pacenka)
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Distribution: usa
Organization: Cornell Center for Environmental Research, Ithaca NY
Lines: 33

In article <852@ur-cc.UUCP> akk2@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Atul Kacker) writes:
>In article <914@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes:
>> How does the PC TOPS Flash Card compare to a PC/Appletalk card?

The FlashCards work just fine for us.  The software from TOPS is excellent.
I've also had good results from their technical support via Compu$erve.

>>NETPRINT will take non-postscript output and make it postscript before
>>sending it to the printer. If you've got an application that generates
>>its own postscript (e.g., PageMaker, Word, Works, Word Perfect), then you
>>don't need it. Just substitute the port on the Appletalk board for the
>>printer port. However, for applications that don't generate postscritp,
>>you will need it.
>
>I'm not very sure about this.  My understanding was that NETPRINT was
>required if you wanted to print to a networked printer, even if your 
>application program generated PostScript output.
>
The TPRINT program which comes with TOPS/DOS will send a file to a printer
on the network, including an Apple LaserWriter.  If your application can
create a "print file" containing Postscript code (MS Word can) then you can
do without NETPRINT if you're willing to exit your application (or Esc-Library-
Run inside Word) to send the file to the network printer.

NETPRINT is a TSR which provides spooling and LPTx emulation, at the 
expense of an extra 70K or so of memory.

Another comment: You don't need to load the TOPS file-sharing software in
a PC in order to use TPRINT.  You only need the ATALK.SYS device driver (20K?)
or the ALAP and PSTACK replacements of ATALK.SYS in TOPS 2.1.  This leaves
ample room for running MS Word if you have 640K total and aren't loading
other memory-hungry TSRs.  (I discovered this empirically.  The TOPS manuals
don't mention this valuable feature.)