Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!shelby!polya!rokicki
From: rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Using a remote Linotronic 100
Message-ID: <9123@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 11 May 89 23:00:59 GMT
References: <1703@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
Sender: Tomas G. Rokicki <rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 38

edwards@dogie.macc.wisc.edu (mark edwards) writes:
>  We are thinking about using a Linotronic at a commerical organization. One
> of the packages we want to use with it is TeX.
> I do have a dvi2ps program, however to use all TeX's math fonts it is 
> necessary to use CM bitmapped fonts, because postscript does not support all
> TeX's math characters. The problem is that the bitmapped fonts for the
> Lintronic have to be made at 1270 dpi. For cmr10 at 10pt this translates
> into a pxl file of 165k, cmr12 is 225k. In short when using these fonts
> the postscript file created can be quite large. The kicker here is that
> we maybe transfering the file over a 2400 baud modem.

And the PostScript file will be at least twice as large, with hex data!
There is a solution.  Pick up a copy of dvips 3.0 from 
labrea.stanford.edu:pub/drivel.tar.Z.  Use it with the -Z option.  This
will `compress' the character bitmaps and download the magic PostScript
to decompress the characters as they are needed.  Typically these
compressed bitmaps at 1270 dpi are only slightly larger than uncompressed
bitmaps at 300 dpi.

Things run pretty quickly, too, despite what you'd think.

The *real* problem with the Linotronic 100 is how abysmally short of
memory it is---180K free VM is usual.  (The Lino 300, in its normal
unexpanded state, is even worse, with only 130K.)  You *need* to use
such a compression scheme to be able to use bitmap fonts at all
effectively in that printer.

I have printed extremely complex pages with over a dozen fonts on each
page and tall characters (cminch, for example) on a Linotronic 100
using this version of dvips . . .

This version of dvips also does accurate memory budgeting, automatically
splitting the document up between save/restores as necessary to allow
it to run under a given amount of VM.  It also supports PostScript fonts
(use them whenever possible to save even more memory in the printer.)
And graphics.  And more.

-tom