Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!news
From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Bitmap of PostScript code..
Message-ID: <1990Feb19.172134.12850@intercon.com>
Date: 19 Feb 90 17:21:34 GMT
References: <1990Feb14.041704.14844@athena.mit.edu> <2761@bacchus.dec.com> <30006@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com> <17975@rpp386.cactus.org>
Sender: @intercon.com
Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Sterling, VA
Lines: 41

In article <17975@rpp386.cactus.org>, woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
writes:
> > Note that this is the theoretically correct answer, *regardless* of
> incorrect answer

Your prejudices are showing again, Woody :-).  Of course, I'm sure mine
do in the rest of this article...

> > no guarantee that there exists one single equivalent bitmap. Profit
> Hmmmmm, so how does the output get put on the page in a standard laserprinter?
> guess what, a bitmap is created in the printers memory, [...]  Take a
> magnifing glass and look carefully.

That has more to do with the printer than with PostScript.  You could
output PostScript on a plotter, or an automatic vinyl cutter, or any
number of other devices that wouldn't know what a bitmap is if you threw
one at them.  A PostScript program is an abstract description of how to
render an image.  It says nothing about the actual end result
of rendering that image.  The fact that most PostScript renderings are done
inside 300 dpi black & white printers is irrelevant.

> [about Elizabeth's "snowflake" program]
> This makes no sense whatsoever.  The snowflake creates a bit-map in the
> printers ram, everytime it is printed.

All right, let's take another example.  What would a bitmap of your
PostScript mailing-list program look like?

If what you want is to render a PostScript program into a bitmap, something
like UltraScript, Freedom of Press, or LaserTalk should do the trick to
one degree or another, but I agree with Elizabeth--let's stop arguing about
the evils of Adobe, or at least take it to alt.religion.computers.

Sigh.

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view."
	--Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Return of the Jedi"