Laser Printer for a Small Network of Suns?

[Henry Spencer]

>>... A LaserJet Plus will put any character you want anywhere you
>>want it...  Your software has to supply the characters, and tell the
>>printer exactly what to do... but the printer will do it...
>
>And what kind of software does this?  Is it your assembly code?  Does it
>resemble the proprietary coding that used to drive Xenotron, Monotype,
>Linotron, Compugraphic typesetters?  (All of whom now offer PostScript.)
>How many applications on the Sun drive the LaserJet this well?  What's the
>language?

The software is any of several freely-redistributable back ends for major
text formatters like ditroff and TeX.  Written in C, portable, completely
non-proprietary, suitable to driving dozens of different laser printers
that are LaserJet-compatible (rather more than are PostScript compatible,
at present, I think).  Text formatters are the major issue here, since --
as I mentioned -- one would *not* pick a LaserJet for graphics.

I will freely concede that PostScript is the wave of the future for
talking to output devices, and is to be preferred if other things are
equal.  At the moment, they aren't, as LaserJets are cheaper and usually
faster.  For people who have major need for graphics or portable output,
this is not significant.  Those people are a minority at present.

I also note that we have quietly changed the subject, away from claiming
that the LaserJet can't do the original job of printing text nicely.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu