🚀 go-pugleaf

In response to the question "Why pay money for ATM when system 7.0 will
have outline fonts?" Brian Bezanson at Adobe (bezanson@adobe.com) states:

> User comments here on the nets, on
>CompuServe, and at MacWorld said they don't want to spend several hundred 
>dollars for more RAM and a hard disk to run 7.0. If ATM fits your needs 
>for better output on the screen and printer, and it retails for $99 
>and could be running on your machine by Nov. 1, then it is 'the' solution. 

The holes I see in this logic are:
1. RAM prices are low and getting lower.  The current cost for going to
   2.5 MB is $172, and by the time System 7.0 is out, I'm sure it
   will be even less.  Compare this to $99 for ATM, and $198 for the
   LaserWriter Plus family of fonts. Even considering a substantial mail
   order discount, ATM is the more costly solution.

2. The cost for additional "standard" fonts seems too high.  As
   mentioned above, I'm being asked to pay $198 to get outline versions
   of fonts that I am now using on a daily basis for free.  Several
   hundred dollars may be a reasonable price to add these typeface
   families to a printer, but Adobe is pushing this technology as a 
   solution for screen display as well.  Considering that the street
   price of a Mac plus is $1300,  $300 seems like a lot of money to
   spend for what is basically system software.

I don't mean this post to be a flame of Adobe.  I like and user their
products.  In fact I would prefer that PostScript be adopted as a screen and
page imaging standard because I have to work in a multi-vendor environment.  
Furthermore, I have more confidence in Adobe than Apple to do the font
imaging the *right* way. 

I also have no complaints in paying money today for a product
that will likely be superseded by Apple's system software in the future
(witness the success of Suitcase and Virtual). 
My complaint is that Adobe needs to look at the pricing structure of their
font families as they move from shared resources (laser printers) to
individual resources (my computer screen).  They should also consider *all*
of the LaserWriter Plus fonts to be the minimum set since realistically that
is in fact the minimum included in any PostScript laser printer.

Now if Adobe was selling ATM for $99, and it included all of the fonts
we are used to using, I would be ordering copies for all of our
Macintoshes, instead of trying to rationalize why I deserve one copy
for my Mac :-)
----------
Mark Day
Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry		mday@zeno.mmwb.ucsf.edu
University of California, San Francisco		..ucbvax!ucsfcgl!mday