Xref: utzoo comp.text:2854 comp.sys.hp:1304 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!purdue!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!enea!kuling!irf From: irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: Desktop publishing systems? Message-ID: <901@kuling.UUCP> Date: 23 Nov 88 08:39:04 GMT References: <2612@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <673@wilbur.unix.ETA.COM> <831@io.UUCP> <1429@zen.UUCP> Reply-To: irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) Organization: Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden Lines: 50 In article <1429@zen.UUCP> vic@zen.UUCP (Victor Gavin) writes: >In article <831@io.UUCP> david@io.UUCP (David Weinberger x5563) writes: >>Let me add some information to Robert Scott's message. (I work for Interleaf.) >> >>o TPS on Sun, Digital and Apollo goes for $2,500 for the Core version (text >>and graphics.) >Doesn't anybody write document preperation systems for Hewlett-Packard >bit-mapped displays? > >Don't you like them ? Is there something wrong with them ? > >I'm serious about this. When I hear about a new funky piece of software I find >that I'll probably never be able to run it without someone buying me a Sun >workstation. The Sun workstation (as far as I can see) has very little to >separate it performance-wise and market-wise for a publishing system. > Yes, I have noticed the same strange thing. Very few people (apart from those who have HP workstations themselves) mention HP as an alternative when they are discussing application software like DTP. I can't understand why. HP has a large installed base (according to Datapro 1987 they sold *more* workstations in Europe than Sun did!), the HP screens are excellent (a side-by-side test I did very clearly showed that they were much better than Sun's rather 'hazy' screens), the price/performance seems to be more advantageous (the 9000/370 has roughly twice the performance of a Sun 3/260 at about the same price; the same is true for the 9000/835 relative to the Sun 3/260), and with HP-UX you get Native Language Support which is so nice for our secretaries who create most of our documents and who can do that communicating with the software in their native tongue (Swedish) by just setting the enviroment variable LANG to 'swedish'! What's more, few people can question HPs outstanding quality. In fact, I have been in contact with Ann Arbor Text who produces the 'Publisher', a TeX-based DTP software which seems very interesting indeed. Of course, they've chosen to write it for Sun's propietary NeWS windowing system first. They promised a X Windows version and I have been nagging them about this for many months now. Of course, HP did the only sensible thing choosing X thereby following a well-established standard. If you are interested in getting a TeX package that runs on HP9000s, pleas contact me by e-mail. I can send it for free. -Bo ^ Bo Thide'-------------------------------------------------------------- | | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 91 Uppsala, Sweden |I| [In Swedish: Institutet f|r RymdFysik, Uppsalaavdelningen (IRFU)] |R| Phone: (+46) 18-403000. Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S). Fax: (+46) 18-403100 /|F|\ INTERNET: bt@irfu.se UUCP: ...!enea!kuling!irfu!bt IP: 192.36.174.1 ~~U~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------sm5dfw