[rescue] while on the subject of axis print servers...

[Dave McGuire]

On Wednesday, June 4, 2003, at 01:11 AM, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
>>    HPPCL is what most HP printers use.  HPGL is the vector-oriented
>> plotter language. (which is actually *nice* compared to HPPCL!)
>
> HP PCL is a slightly-passable refinement of the escape-code printing
> control systems of the bad old days.  You can easily see where it tries
> to emulate them IBM ProPrinter.
>
> HPGL is a really neat language, and PS just blows them all away.  After
> hacking around in PostScript ever now and again for the last few 
> months,
> I shudder to think that I used to have a PCL priner on my desk.  It's
> just so astounding how much of the rasterization PCL offloads onto the
> host system.

   Agree 100% on all points...absolutely...I write PCL, HPGL, and 
PostScript output drivers for a very simple X11-based PCB autorouting 
program that I wrote many years ago.  PCL required much, much more 
effort than either HPGL or PostScript.

   I have to admit that part of this, though, was due to the fact that 
the application was vector-based, and both HPGL and PostScript (mostly) 
are vector-based.  But PCL was still a lot more work than it should 
have been, and it was "dirtier".

       -Dave

--
Dave McGuire             "I've grown hair again, just
St. Petersburg, FL           for the occasion."       -Doc Shipley