Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!sim!scole
From: scole@sim.uucp (Steven Curtis Cole)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Help with DVIEPS (Again, Desperate!)
Message-ID: <21995@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 12 Feb 90 01:59:56 GMT
References: <90Feb4.120923est.4589@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: scole@sim.UUCP (Steven Curtis Cole)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Noticing a few messages about DVIEPS here, I'd though I'd tell you all
what I've managed to accomplish with it.

I got the binary in the DOSTEX distribution, and noticed memory
problems as well as a few other bugs having to do with stray dots over
the page.  Disatisfied with its performance, I grabbed the source for
the DVI drivers and recompiled with my own changes.

What happens in my version:  To keep memory use down, I scan each page
three times, storing and printing one third of the page on each pass.
The old DVIEPS I had used only two passes.  Unfortunately, this
increases execution time by 50%.  The new version is also written for
a generic IBM graphics printer, not whatever printer it was originally
written for.  Whatever the noise problem was disappeared in the new version.

Unfortunately, the changes aren't ifdef'd very well, and I didn't feel
that my changes should be submitted to the people who worry about the
source for TeX.  

I'd be happy to contribute the source to someone who can fix it up and
get it to the right people; I don't have the time now to properly take
care of it.  (Such is the life of a graduate student...)

Note that this thing is monsterously slow.  It's faster for me to
upload my dvi files, and then drive to campus to use a laser printer
to produce output than it is to use my poor EPSON...  If you've got
capability like this, spend your time getting that to work and just
forget about DVIEPS... (Of course, I'm also running an old 4.77 MHz XT...)

Steve Cole
scole@sim.berkeley.edu