Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM!mcc From: mcc@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Comment on RFC1124 (?) Message-ID: <8910011555.AA08672@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM> Date: 1 Oct 89 15:55:19 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 41 Vint: > I assume that your tongue was firmly in cheek in proposing > to have the IAB acquire a PostScript printing/display > capability for every Internet site. The last host count > was 118,000+ and growing. Yes. I did, however, require a surgical procedure to have it removed. > The principal reason for considering PostScript as an > allowable publishing medium was the belief that it is > widely available already. Is it the case that your site > has no PostScript capability at all? The technically accurate response is that we do have a PostScript capability; however, the problem is accessability. The PostScript capable printers are on classified systems which cannot be connected to the Internet. In order to print an RFC on those systems, I would have to modify the document to include the required "U N C L A S S I F I E D" banner at the top and bottom of each page and may have to include the "(U)" at the beginning of each para- graph unless, of course, the author has already done that for me. Should I fail to do that, I will get the system's default banner and be required to secure the document in a vault when not in use. The basic problem is that we have two different views of the "Information Age". There are those, like myself, who envision a world where paper is the exception rather than the rule. We want to be able to display the in- formation at a terminal, obtain the information that we require, and get on with business. Desktop publishing is an anachronism. Or is it the future for those whose performance is measured by the printed word? For this group desktop publishing is the future. Their ideas and observations can be rapidly distributed over the electronic medium with the publishing costs being absorbed by the target audience. The basic problem is that the first group wants the information but does not want the description of how the information is displayed on the printed page. How do we resolve this problem? From my perspective, the information is not in a usable form. Merton