🚀 go-pugleaf

mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) writes:

>I NEED THIS INFO FAST, PLEASE!


>OK...I have an 040 NeXTCube and a 286 AT-Clone. The NeXT is
>attached to a NeXT printer, the 286 to an Okidata 9-pin (no help). 
>Data transfer between the two machines will be via serial cable
>(no ethernet terminators!). 

>The NeXT requires a simple ASCII file for the outline font, and
>a standard ASCII AFM file. My understanding is that I'll have to
>do some weird things to make this work.

You can, in fact, transfer PC Postscript fonts to the NeXT. I have
tried it, it works, but I still have one annoying problem with it.

The necessary steps seem to be (NeXT OS Version 2.0):

1) Create a postscript file containing the font definition. This
   can be done on the PC with Adobe's PCSEND utility.

2) The resulting file contains ASCII hexadecimal data in lines
   (records) of 128 characters.
   The NeXT doesn't seem to like these. So you need a short program
   to change the record length to 64.

4) Remove the "serverdict begin..." at the beginning of the font file.

5) Change the resulting text file to UNIX format by stripping all
   CR (ASCII 0DH) characters.
   Do the same with the AFM file.

6) Transfer the font and AFM files to the NeXT.
   (the easiest way to do this is via 3 1/2" disks).
   Login as root.

7) In "/LocalLibrary/Fonts", create a folder "<fontname>.font"
   for each font you want to install.
   The correct font name can be found in the font file - there is
   a line
   /fontname /<fontname> readonly def

   This step is definitely different if you still have a '030 cube
   and OS 1.0, because the directory structure was changed in 2.0.

8) Copy the font and AFM files to the newly created folder.
   Rename them to <fontname> and <fontname>.afm, respectively.

9) From the cshell, enter:
   buildafmdir /LocalLibrary/Fonts
   This command updates the font directory.

The fonts can now be used and should appear in the font panel
of your applications.

But... there is a problem that I could not solve: if you select
such a font for the first time after you started your system,
then the preview will show Courier or Helvetica. Some applications,
e.g. WriteNow, will even terminate/crash.

If you find out how to solve this problem, please let me know
(or, even better, give a report in comp.sys.next or
 comp.lang.postscript).


----------------+--------------------------------+---------------
Mathias Myka    | I have to _pay_ for incoming   | "It's never
8940 Memmingen  | international mail. So, please |  too late to
F.R. of Germany | keep your answers short.       |  have a happy
                | Thank you !                    |  childhood."
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