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From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: *COMPLETE* Postscript Descripti
Message-ID: <99500009@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Dec 89 17:29:20 GMT
References: <17492@rpp386.cactus.org>
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Nf-ID: #R:rpp386.cactus.org:17492:p.cs.uiuc.edu:99500009:000:827
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Dec 27 13:00:00 1989


Re: Postscript printers that image the page using several bands

If the printer doesn't have a hard disk, I can't see how this is
possible.  Most laserprinters cannot halt halfway through printing
a page, since the paper would burn up.  Therefore, the paper runs
through the printer continuously.

To free up the band buffer, it must be printed.  But then the next
band must already be imaged because printing is now in progress.
Since a band can be extremely complex, even a clever band-buffering
scheme might fail if the page is very complex.


Am I missing something?  Are there postscript printers that only store
a portion of the page at any time?

Low-end Xerox Interpress laser printers use banding, and will screw up
complicated graphics (especially scaled bitmaps) because of this
phenomena.  I know of no workaround.