Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!woody From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Compiled PostScript Summary: please read again Message-ID: <17582@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 7 Jan 90 02:47:39 GMT References: <1666@intercon.com> <1589@adobe.UUCP> Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX Lines: 40 In article <1589@adobe.UUCP>, baffico@adobe.COM (Tom Baffico) writes: > In article <17564@rpp386.cactus.org> woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes: > >In article <1681@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > >> woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes: > >> > >> >To my knowledge > >> >hardware addition would make a significant impact on through put. > >> Well, a hardware FPU will add several hundred dollars to the price. Since > >> for most applications (churning out pages of text), the speed is limited > >> by the marking engine, it's probably a reasonable compromise. > > > >Yep, it is more expensive. But consider that approx $1000 of the price of > >a postscript (Adobe) printer goes directly to adobe, both through royalties > > How does Adobe make $1,000 on PostScript royalties when TI is selling > their microLaser PostScript upgrade board for $505? (Which includes the > usual 35 Adobe PostScript fonts.) > > As to the benefit of having a FPU, for most controllers the performance > increase is actually quite small. > > Tom Baffico > Adobe Systems Tom, If you'll re-read the post you will see that I indicated that things might have changed. I indicated the context that these figures came from. The $1000 is the INCREMENTAL cost. The Adobe royalties are less than that, and it has been my understanding that they have gone down somewhat. I understand where you are coming from, but I believe that I was amply clear about the breakdown of the figures, and the fact that they were from about 1986. AS to the benifits of a FPU, I am certain that the speedup would matter. Software floating point has to be slower than hardware floatingpoint, and unless I am mistaken, the PS controller does most of it's stuff in floating point. Perhaps it uses scaled fixed point, and then I would agree. Cheers Woody