🚀 go-pugleaf

Here at Sun all our printers speak PostScript, and using NeWS we can
preview PostScript directly on-screen.  So, why bother producing
ditroff typesetter output files which we immediately turn into
PostScript using `devps` or TranScript's `psdit`?

Even going through the translation into ditroff intermediate format,
the PostScript file produced by `psdit` is much smaller than the
intermediate file generated by `ditroff` (169K vs 224K for a 38-page
manual).  I assume that by going directly to PostScript from within
`ditroff`, you could generate much more efficient PostScript, e.g.
replacing
	288 5253(This)N
	467(publication)X
	887(is)X
	968(protected)X
	1318(by)X
	1428(Federal)X
	1714(Copyright)X
	2094(Law,)X
with
	288 5253(This publication is protected by Federal Copyright Law,)show


So, does anyone sell and support a `ditroff` which generates PostScript
directly?  Can anyone explain why ditroff still generates its peculiar
intermediate form in this day and age?

The tragic irony, which I'm almost to ashamed to admit, is that James
Gosling here at Sun wrote such a modified `ditroff` one afternoon (!!)
a few years ago, but I couldn't get it to work with our font set and
then-current version of ditroff.  I saw the future, and it fell away.

These are my opinions, not my employer's; NeWS and PostScript and maybe
even `ditroff` are TMs of their various owners.

Thanks in advance for any pointers or information,
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