Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!daemon
From: ib@apolling (Ivan N. Bach)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: PostScript Language
Message-ID: <9447@imagen.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 90 17:29:53 GMT
Sender: daemon@imagen.UUCP
Lines: 40

jeynes@adobe.COM writes:

>UltraScript is not an Adobe product; it is a clone PostScript interpreter
>made by Imagen/QMS.

I am getting tired of reading about PostScript "clones."  The word "clone"
had never been used to describe the implementation of a procedural language 
until Adobe started using it to refer to the implementations of the PostScript
language by other companies.  Have you ever heard of a COBOL or FORTRAN clone?

Have you ever heard of a proposal for a new world standard for the storing
and transmitting of image data that wastes up to 90% of the communication
channel's capacity?  Have you ever heard of a modern procedural language
whose deficiencies are covered up by extending it with specific versions
of comment statements?  Have you ever heard of a procedural language in
public domain whose most important component has been encrypted?  Have
you ever heard of a procedural language in public domain whose name you
are not allowed to use when you implement that language?

Intel says that by year 2000 microprocessor chips will contain 100 million
transistors and operate at 250MHz.  If we leave it to Adobe to design our
page and document description languages, by year 2000 we will still have to 
waste our time preprocessing arithmetic expressions from the usual format
supported by the first high-level procedural language into the Reverse
Polish notation in order to make it easier to interpret such expressions.
The general-purpose programming part of our page description languages
will be at the level of a programmable calculator, and we will still have
to worry about doing our own gargabe collection, so that we do not run out
of virtual memory.  We will still have printer drivers that convert compact
image descriptions in binary format into very readable long words that are
never seen by a human being.  We will keep waiting for that readable data
to be sent over a 9600-baud communications link to a printer controller
that will take so long to process even these preprocessed statements that
mechanical parts of a modern printer will wait on the electronic parts, so 
that we will still not be able to drive our printers at full speed.

Ivan N. Bach                      Tel (408) 986-9400, x508
QMS, Inc.                         Fax (408) 727-3725 
2650 San Tomas Expressway         arpa: ib@imagen.com 
Santa Clara, CA 95051             uucp: decwrl!imagen!ib