Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!rpp386!woody
From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Configuring an Apple LaserWriter for 8-bit postscript
Summary: 8bit data
Message-ID: <17481@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 21 Dec 89 23:25:25 GMT
References: <89352.151243HATHAWA@GECRDVM1.BITNET> <17467@rpp386.cactus.org> <1044@maxim.erbe.se>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 38

In article <1044@maxim.erbe.se>, prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson) writes:
> In article <17467@rpp386.cactus.org>, woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes:
> 
> > O.K.  you can set the serial port with setscc to be a full 8 bits wide.
> > The data will get through, EXCEPT CERTAIN control code, ^D ^S ^Q ^T ^C
> > Currently, Adobe in it's infinite wisdon
> > has not seen fit to tell us how to get around this problem.
> 
> Yes, they have. The client (ie, the application generating the Postscript
> code) should not rely on anything else than a 7-bit, no-control-chars data
> flow. All non-ASCII characters and control characters should be sent in
> backslash-octal form (ie, \014).
> 
> The info is in the Red Book. You just have to read it very carefully.
> 
> -- 
>           Robert Claeson      E-mail: rclaeson@erbe.se
> 	  ERBE DATA AB

Of course, of course, but tell that to some program written before postscript
ever came on the scene.  Remember, more programs write output to a Diablo
printer than postscript printers.  If you have 1 printer and it is a postscript
printer, you need an emulator perhaps, then what are you gonna do?  How
do you tell a program that needs to get 8 bits of data out, that it needs
to watch for control characters, and preface them with \?  Sure, go 
change the source, IF you have it, and IF you don't have to change 4000 files.
But the biggest gotcha of all, is that that funky \xxx comes through the
communication routines as just that, "\xxx".  The PS input scanner does
not (at least what I've seen) do a conversion of the xxx sequence to a binary
number, but passes it on as ASCII.  Representing hex data i.e. binary data
in a printable ascii form is o.k., but it doubles the size of the file.

Yes, the info is in the Red book, but my contention is that it is unduly
restrictive, we live in an 8 bit world, bytes nolonger have 7 bits.
Cheers

Woody