Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!hannah.dec.com!batcheldern
From: batcheldern@hannah.dec.com (Ned Batchelder, PostScript Eng.)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: ^D's, was (Re: "copy" to Amiga serial port)
Message-ID: <8905041304.AA26209@decwrl.dec.com>
Date: 4 May 89 13:04:46 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 19

In article <15402@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes:
>So when I told him about this ^D discussion we were having, he was
>appalled there there was this piece of *BINARY* in an otherwise
>perfectly ascii language.

Your friend (or you, but no need to point fingers) missed the crucial
point:  ^D is NOT a component of the PostScript language.  It is a
widely accepted method for indicating end-of-file to serial-line PostScript
printers.  This is exactly analogous to the use of ^S to do flow
control. It isn't part of PostScript; it's part of the printer protocol.
There are printers (and other PostScript interpreters) which don't know
a ^D from any other control character.

A challenge:  find where in the Red Book ^D is discussed (except in
appendix D, for those of you with old Red Books).

Ned Batchelder
Digital Equipment Corporation
BatchelderN@Hannah.DEC.com