Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!ginosko!uunet!mstan!perry
From: perry@Morgan.COM (Perry Metzger)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: PostScript Versus ASCII
Message-ID: <417@colorado.Morgan.COM>
Date: 2 Oct 89 17:58:13 GMT
References: <8909301233.aa05407@huey.udel.edu> <6373@ficc.uu.net> <629@wet.UUCP>
Reply-To: perry@Morgan.COM (Perry Metzger)
Organization: Morgan Stanley and Co., NY, NY
Lines: 24

In article <629@wet.UUCP> epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott) writes:
>I don't know how things are where you live, but in California if
>you don't have PostScript capability "at home" you go to the
>local copy shop with a diskette.

Sorry, but here in New York, things are different. I still want ASCII,
if you don't mind. The beauty of ASCII is that everyone can in fact
read it. Most RFC's even convert pretty well into EBCDIC with simple
tools. 

>Rather than argue about how widespread PostScript is, why not
>support software such as FSF's GhostScript that will make it
>unquestionably available to the neo-Luddites?

What about people who want to read their RFC's today? So far as I
know, GhostScript has no outline fonts and doesn't drive any laser
printers that I own. Besides, it is written in C. What happens to
those people who are using machines other than Unix boxes? Since when
did they become second class citizens? What happened to people without
laser printers? Not everyone has them, you know.

The point here is this. PostScript may claim to be the new ASCII, but
in fact ISO Latin 1 is the new ascii :-).

Perry