Re: Counterpoint: Lexmark's lack of technical support

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#53923

From: Mike Battersby
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 00:00

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In article <349274C1.5E885691@cqu.edu.au>, Ralph Pengelly wrote:
>Yes, they are GDI. That does not mean that they need Windows. I have

Well, not necessarily, but it is the Windows "Graphical Device Interface"
(or whatever it stands for), and since when have you found Microsoft
to be forthcoming with low level programming information?

>proven to my own satisfaction that the GDI does constitute a control
>language: I printed to a file from Windows, using the Lexmark driver,

It's basically a compressed bitmap, but I expect there would be some
rudimentary control information.  It's by no means sending page
description commands.

>do). With the requisite control codes, I can easily write a driver for
>my postscript interpreter (Ghostscript), which only requires graphical
>control codes.

I believe (and this is the crux of the matter), that GDI is a Microsoft
standard, and you have to (a) pay for the specification and (b) sign
an NDA.  You probably *could* develop your own ghostscript driver, but
you wouldn't be able to share it with anyone else.  It's infinitely
better just not to buy GDI printers.

 - Mike

-- 
|   Mike Battersby                        |   mike@starbug.bofh.asn.au        |
|   http://www.deakin.edu.au/~mib/        |   mib@deakin.edu.au               |

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From: mib@deakin.edu.au (Mike Battersby)
Subject: Re: Counterpoint: Lexmark's lack of technical support
Date: 1997/12/15
Message-ID: <slrn6993cv.ssb.mib@triton.its.deakin.edu.au>
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References: <34922FD6.568677B3@cqu.edu.au> <slrn694fum.suu.mib@earth.its.deakin.edu.au> <349274C1.5E885691@cqu.edu.au>
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