Subject: Re: Postscript is not the way to go

From: James Lin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 21:41:42 -0700

Dear Netters :

I would like to share some information on the Chinese DTP software we
know on the printing issues.

About 7 years ago, there are several Chinese DTP systems developed in
Taiwan.  Most of them use the Tall Tree's JLaser video interface spec to
accomplish fast printing.  The DTP system will generate the whole page
image in EMS memory, then use the added INT 67 extended functions to dump
the whole image directly to laser printer engine.  As you can see, the
reason for doing this is simply SPEED.  There is no PDL involved and no
slow parallel port transmitting.   Basically, the PC CPU is the rip -
doing all the rendering inside PC.

This kind of printing is still very popular in Taiwan.  Many of the VIO
board manufacture provide not only those video driver for Chinese DTP but
also provide printing drivers for Windows.  LaserMaster has a line of
products called WinJet is similar to this.

Postscript may not be very appropriate for low cost DTP but still very
important for fine output and high end printing.  The rendering speed of
rip is increasing and Ghostscript is just a very simple public domain
solution.  You can simply compare the output between Ghostscipt and the
demo rendering program on Sun operating system and see how much
difference there is.

James Lin