Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ulysses!cjc From: cjc@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Chris Calabrese[rs]) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: Re: Traffic on the X list Summary: color on the printer too Message-ID: <10444@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> Date: 13 Jul 88 16:56:19 GMT References: <8807090612.AA05871@dmssyd.dms.oz> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 56 In article <8807090612.AA05871@dmssyd.dms.oz>, ronb@natmlab.dms.OZ.AU.UUCP writes: > > In article <23581@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > > > >And it's not like there are applications out there crying for NeWS > >(eg. things like Frame), there's no noise I've heard from our users > >(as a matter of fact I have no idea off-hand what is available with > >NeWS other than the environment and a terminal emulator, am I missing > >something? How would I know? I haven't seen any literature really and > > Well that really is an invitation to mention that we have a > version of the AT&T S Data Analysis System running under > NeWS. It has the name of Ace and the first version is out > there but, of course, we are working on the second which will > be a whole lot better. > > So what, you could say, since S is readily available under > SunView -- S-Plus comes to mind. Well, since NeWS is built on > PostScript it has been quite easy to make Ace generate > very impressive color graphics on the screen, and equally > impressive grey-scale graphics on the LaserWriter -- instead > of the simple Tek-like line drawings that most S users get. > > So you are right, maybe it will need a bit more time before > the number of applications will become noticeable, but I > expect these applications will have excellent graphics > capabilities because PostScript makes it possible. What, you don't have a color PostScript printer yet??? O.K. the one we have here is about $20,000, so you're off the hook. Anyway, I whole heartedly agree. The project I'm working on now is using NeWS for just these types of reasons. Quick development time. Can print anything that can be displayed on the screen. Low network bandwidth (for those who say that such things as menu synchronization eat this up, I say hog wash! Just write the _whole_ application in PostScript, and you won't have to worry about communication costs. Actually, our software is about 90% in PostScript, so it is possible, without losing performance (speed of drawing and doing large datbase searches are much bigger problems on our project than speed of interpreting the PostScript code. Don't have to take a course in computer graphics to understand it. PostScript looks messy, but it's really _clean_ and easy to understand. Plus, the imaging model is more intuitive for those of us who have studdied art, and not fundamentals of math oriented bit blitting 403 in graduate school. -- Christopher J. Calabrese AT&T Bell Laboratories ulysses!cjc