🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <AXA4Jay00VsMI1MUcA@andrew.cmu.edu> bob+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bob Sidebotham) writes:
>For people with relatively modest volume printing requirements, it would seem
>ideal to be able to buy a cheap printing engine, without PostScript support,
>and do the PostScript to raster conversion in the host computer.  Does anyone
>know if there is any such product on the market, or anticipated to be? . . .

There is a company here in San Diego (unfortunately, I've misplaced
the flyer I picked up at the San Diego Computer Fair over Labor Day
Weekend -- I'll find it this weekend and post the information) that
makes a product called 'GoScript' for IBM PCs and clones. This is an
entirely software-based Postscript-compatible interpreter that will
output to many dot-matrix and laser printers, and a number of
plotters. The program uses Bitstream's soft font packages, so adding
fonts to the output should be simple.

An update to the GoScript package to implement the Postscript color
model is under development -- they were demoing an alpha version of
the color output on an HP plotter at the Computer Fair, as well as
running the current B&W version. The output looked pretty good on the
dot matrix printer (unfortunately, they don't yet support the 360x360
dpi mode on my NEC printer, but the 240x240 Epson compatibility is
supported). On the HP LaserJet, I couldn't tell the difference between
its output and output from a Laserwriter.

The only problem with the program, and one that may or may not be a
major problem, depending on your needs, is that it's _slow_. Doing a
complex PostScript image can take upwards of 45 minutes. 

The GoScript package is being sold for $195. I will dig out the flyer
I picked up and post the address for the company.



	Sean Malloy
	Navy Personnel Research & Development Center
	San Diego, CA 92152-6800
	malloy@nprdc.arpa