[rescue] SparcPrinter

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> Actually, it's identical in concept to the NEC WinPrinters.  However,
> instead of understanding Windows GDI (like the WinPrinters), it speaks
> NeWS[1] or some variant thereof.  Therefore, you need the appropriate

The original SparcPrinter doesn't speak any particular printing protocol,
rather it accepts a raw 400dpi raster of the page.

It would be more correct to say that it is identical in concept to, say,
the NeXTprinter (another raw raster engine).

> Clearly the SPARCprinter was designed during a week where some intern
> office aide accidentally replaced the Coffee-Mate with cheap crack.

Offloading Postscript rendering to the print server made a lot of sense at
the time, as the required CPU power was large and the access pattern
bursty.  Not many other printers from 1991 could sustain 12ppm at 400dpi
(though admittantly it requires a reasonably fast host to do so).

-James