Low end HP printers & OS X 10.6
in [UK Mac]
|
From: Woody on 3 May 2010 15:28 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > Simon Dobbs <simondobbs(a)froglet.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Woody wrote: > > > > > > > > > > There is a lot more info in the developer section, that is just a > > > > > > confirmation. Basically the graphics in windows is cached in PDF > > > > > > images (which is why OSX uses PDF naturally as it does), whereas in > > > > > > NeXT, graphics were stored as PS code, which was executed when it > > > > > > needed to draw, which is a lot slower. > > > > > > > > > > That's why I thought that macs used pdf as the page description > > > > > language now- surely if all documents are rendered as pdf by the > > > > > operating system, it is a simple step to use that as the page > > > > > description to all printers > > > > > > > > It would be easy enough for printers to accept PDF, but even PDF is > > > > pretty complex to handle, especially in rotation and transparancy, > > > > whereas a simple printer needs a lot less detail. > > > > > > I wouldn't say less detail. It's more that if you want to interpret > > > PDF, you need a full on computer inside the printer - the code to do > > > most of that job is available for free I expect (he said, looking at the > > > various tools used in the TeX world). > > > > > > And there are cheaper ways to build a printer than to give them the sort > > > of computing power needed to permit rendering of PDF pages in a > > > reasonable time. > > > > Umm.. that is what I said, the printer needs less detail. It just needs > > a bitmap. > > Umm.... A bitmap input is exactly the same degree of detail as sending > a page to be rendered. > > Or it should be, assuming that the host computer has rendered the bitmap > to send to the printer as competently as a printer would render the > image from the same input that the host computer used. yes, which as I said, requires that the printer replicate the functionality of the computer, which costs more than just sending it a bitmap. > So what you wrote isn't right and doesn't really make any sense that I > can see. ok, well leave it as that then. -- Woody Alienrat Design Ltd
From: Woody on 3 May 2010 15:28
Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Simon Dobbs <simondobbs(a)froglet.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > forgive my ignorance, and my inability to cut a longish thread, > > > > > > > but I thought that Macs had now lost postsript as the printing > > > > > > > file format of preference in favour of the acrobat file format. > > > > > > > > > > > > The compositing of views is done in the same way PDF yes, which is > > > > > > a lot > > > > > > simpler than postscript. > > > > > > > > > > Eh? Explain - I thought that the two were sufficiently similar that > > > > > there wasn't a lot of difference in that line, except that PS has more > > > > > programmability, which makes pdf safer. > > > > > > > > PDF is a superset, > > > > > > <puzzled> Really? I thought it was more like a subset with a few > > > additions needed due to the programmability that had been removed. > > > > No, it is a superset, it has had things added and other things improved. > > It has also had things removed as well. > > If it's had things removed and things added, it's neither a superset nor > a subset but an intersecting set. ok. > > > > > I thought that the reason Apple dropped Display PDF is because > > > > > Adobe put the licence fee too high, and that Display PDF (being as > > > > > much an Adobe product as PS, innit?) needed a licence paying > > > > > whoever's using it. > > > > > > > > No, pdf is an open standard (but created by adobe) that requires no > > > > license to use, > > > > > > PDF might be that - but we're talking about Display PDF, which isn't > > > quite the same. > > > > Why isn't it? > > <puzzled> Why ask such a stupid question? Becasue you are telling me that display PDF isn't quite the same as PDF, which is news to me, because as far as I know it is exactly the same. so I was asking you what the difference is. Why is that stupid? > > > >postscript is a licensed product of adobe that requires > > > > a license to use, that is why all printers didn't do postscript. > > > > > > I've known that for a while - but decent free PS emulation via gs has > > > been available for a very long time to get round that problem. > > > > Maybe, but what are the chances of apple implimenting an emulation of > > postscript without adobe objecting? > > <puzzled> Huh? Haven't you heard of GhostScript? Yes, I have, but that is an open source project run by people with no money. What are the chances of apple running ghostscript and not getting sued by adobe? > Seems to me that Adobe couldn't do a thing to stop Apple using it - and > it hasn't tried to stop other firms implementing > not-paying-Adobe-anything PS emulation that I've ever heard of. None of them quite have apples resources though > I've got an HP printer with PS emulation in it behind me now. > > > For a start it wasn't available when OSX was started. > > And yet gs was available back in the days when the `next gen Mac OS > project' was called Taligent. GhostScript was released in 1988. was it? I assumed it was much later than that. Wow, that is good then. > That's 1988 - the year System 6 was released. I think you'll find that > it was still around when the OS X project was begun in the System 7 era > (System 7 came out in 1991). The OSX project came out a lot later than the system 7 era, that is when copeland was out. > "Efforts to develop Pink started around 1989, although at the time the > effort was primarily a research effort." - Pink ended up being called > Taligent, which was dropped for the OPENSTEP development line, which > started in 1996 (at the earliest, being the year Apple bought NeXT). Yes, as I said. > Come the `start' of the MacOS X project (the start of the particular > line of work at Apple which gave us what we've got), printers with PS > emulation (rather than real life licenced Adobe PostScript) were > commonplace and GhostScript had been out for EIGHT years. > > So what are you on about? Its called not knowing that ghostscript was around then > > > > > > Compositing any view (PDF view, screen view or printer view) > > > > > > works in the same way. > > > > > > > > > > Macs don't use Display PDF, do they? > > > > > > > > They do. Have a look at the section on quartz on there OSX overview > > > > page: > > > > <http://developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/graphics-and-animation.html > > > > > > Given that all it says on the subject is: > > > > > > `Quartz 2D's rich graphics capabilities are based on the Portable > > > Document Format (PDF)' > > > > > > you could have pasted it here just as easily as the url... > > > > I could indeed. > > So you were just being a pain for the sake of it, then? No, I was just refering you to the document as if I had just said it you would have said I was lying. > > > > There is a lot more info in the developer section, that is just a > > > > confirmation. > > > > > > Oh! Righto. I'd got the idea that they'd dropped that way of doing it. > > > > No. It is the way the whole quartz system works. You can tell if you are > > doing low level graphics to it. It is unlike most other computer display > > systems where you composite information > > Can you explain what that means? Compositing is where you have a series of images that you have described and a list of how those images are combined, like a vector drawing. So you would have an image, and a background, and some lines, and you could change the transparancy / rotation / other attributes of them and redraw them as a different image. Generally what you would have done before is draw directly into a bitmap, at which point although you could change the whole image, you wouldn't be able to change one part of it (ie, rotate a part of the image) > > > > Basically the graphics in windows is cached in PDF images > > > > (which is why OSX uses PDF naturally as it does), > > > > > > But where does the actual PDF-ness of things come in to it, then? > > > > Basically it is the graphics compositing thing. You can cache a load of > > images in everything, what PDF gives you is a set of transformation > > matrixes for how those graphics are applied to each other. This means it > > gives you a good way to distort, or change those graphics for fancy > > graphics effects. > > Can't that be done just as readily in PS? You could do it in PS. but you would have to embed the code of how to do them in the image. As a result you would end up with a bigger image which you would then have to execute separately to change. So yes, you could do it in PS, but it would be a different process that wouldn't be able to use the advantage of a graphics processor in anything like the same way. > > > I don't see why anything else wouldn't do just as well for a container > > > format. > > > > Well, it could well be done in another way, but PDF gives you some other > > facitilies. > > Anything which is missing from PS? > > > Nothing you couldn't actually do another way, but you have > > to pick one thing, and that is what they picked. > > Erm, yers - and the point of that point was what? The point was, they needed to use something, display PDF had a number of financial and performance advantages over PS, so they picked that. It doesn't mean the same thing couldn't ahve been performed in PS if they had really wanted to, but it had fewer advantages. > > > > whereas in NeXT, > > > > graphics were stored as PS code, which was executed when it needed to > > > > draw, which is a lot slower. > > > > > > But surely NeXT could have been designed to cache images in a similar > > > way, using PS as the container format just as OS X uses PDF that way? > > > > It could have done. Ultimately the licensing issues were the major ones, > > especially at the time when adobe really didn't want to do any favours > > for apple. > > <puzzled> What does that have to do with NeXT? > > >If they had known that OSX was going to be successfull, they > > would have probably tried to do something about the licensing. > > Eh? What do you mean? Adobe would have probably not been so lenient with the licensing of PDF. > > > > ahh, here, from the original reviews of the technical previews of OSX: > > > > <http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-gui/macos-x-gui-4.html> > > > > > > What was done back then isn't necessarily what ended up in 10.6... > > > > What we have now is an improved version, but it is still the same thing. > > I'd need to read up on it - your word is not exactly reliable... Feel free - the information is all out there. -- Woody Alienrat Design Ltd |