troff and HP laser printers

[Ian F. Darwin]

rkh at mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran) writes:
>[MKS] licensed the 'enhanced' troff package from SoftQuad in Toronto,
>and ported that to DOS.  They support HP, PostScript & AT&T 495 laser 
>printers.  We have installed it on some of our PC's, and it seems to
>work OK.

Thanks for the comments. We're glad you like it.  MKS has indeed done a fine
job of porting SoftQuad Publishing Software (SQPS) from UNIX to the DOS
environment for us.  They also provide, as has been mentioned, the MKS
Toolkit, containing their implementations (not ports) of many standard UNIX
programs.

>The problem we have is that their troff generates a
>proprietary intermediate code, which means we are obliged to use
>their post-processors instead of being able to ship it up to our
>Unix hosts for post-processing.

That's not a bug, it's a feature! :-) The intermediate language that our
troff produces is much easier to operate on with standard UNIX tools such as
awk, sed, etc.  (not to mention the human eye) than is the code produced by
ditroff.  However, we recognize that customers will sometimes want to use the
output of our troff with older post-processors, so current versions of
SoftQuad software include a program called "condit" which converts our
intermediate code into the (cryptic) codes needed by AT&T and others' ditroff
post-processors on your UNIX host.

bill at ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes:
>...  I'm not aware of a DWB for the UNIX-PC, perhaps
>someone will post a source to buy it.
>It might be available (all guesses) in
>THE STORE or maybe from the AT&T Toolchest.

SQPS, our substantially-enhanced DWB, is also available for the 3B1 from AT&T
and from SoftQuad.  Full troff support; lots more features, enhancements and
bug-fixes than older troffs and ditroffs.  A snazzy screen previewer for the
3B1 will doubtless be along soon, because several of our R&D staff now own
3B1's!

For information on either version, please phone our marketing department at
416-963-8337.  U.S. inquiries can use the AT&T co-marketing hotline,
800-387-2777.  Or send mail to "mail at sq.com" or uunet!sq!mail.

Hope this information helps.

Ian Darwin
Director of R&D,
SoftQuad Inc.
720 Spadina Avenue
Toronto, Canada
M5S 2T9