Category : DeskTop Publishing in the 1990's
Archive   : GS252INI.ZIP
Filename : README.DOC

 
Output of file : README.DOC contained in archive : GS252INI.ZIP
Copyright (C) 1990, 1992 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved.
Distributed by Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of Ghostscript.

Ghostscript is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. No author or distributor accepts responsibility
to anyone for the consequences of using it or for whether it serves any
particular purpose or works at all, unless he says so in writing. Refer
to the Ghostscript General Public License for full details.

Everyone is granted permission to copy, modify and redistribute
Ghostscript, but only under the conditions described in the Ghostscript
General Public License. A copy of this license is supposed to have been
given to you along with Ghostscript so you can know your rights and
responsibilities. It should be in a file named COPYING. Among other
things, the copyright notice and this notice must be preserved on all
copies.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This file, readme.doc, describes problems and new features in the
current release of Ghostscript. This file describes version 2.5.2 of
Ghostscript.

For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see
README.

New features
============

Note: this is not a complete list of new features. See the most recent
section of NEWS for full details.

The DeskJet and LaserJet drivers (finally) work correctly.

You can now set all settable device properties (OutputFile,
BufferSpace, MaxBitmap) using -s or -d on the command line.

Known problems
==============

Interpreter
-----------

The interactive interpreter requires that every statement fit on a line,
i.e., you can't have an unpaired ( or {.

On a MS-DOS system, interrupting Ghostscript by typing ^C doesn't restore
the display mode.

Operators
---------

The Ghostscript language does not include the following operators of the
PostScript language:

resetfile
banddevice, renderbands (these are obsolete)

The following are not implemented completely:

%statementedit (file name): interpreted as equivalent to
%lineedit.

Most of the new color operators, particularly those that support the CMYK
color model, are implemented as Ghostscript language procedures, and they
essentially emulate CMYK using RGB.

The following operators that expect arrays won't accept packed arrays:
definefont (Subrs (type 1 fonts))
setdash (dash pattern)
setcachedevice (bounding box)
makeimagedevice (palette)

The file operator only recognizes modes r and w, not the newer modes r+,
w+, a, and a+.

Limitations
-----------

Floating point exceptions terminate Ghostscript, rather than producing a
rangecheck error.

Some access checks aren't implemented.

copypage does nothing in the MS-DOS implementation, and merely
synchronizes the X connection in the Unix implementation. showpage is a
procedure that does a copypage and then beeps the bell and waits for the
user to hit a key. (copypage does do the right thing for printers.)

Graphics bugs
-------------

strokepath produces incorrect output for dashed lines.

The implementation only looks at the PaintType of the font when doing
show, not when doing charpath. Because of this, stroked fonts don't work
correctly with charpath.

arcto gives an error for negative radii.

Changing the contents of the Encoding array or the Metrics dictionary of a
font dynamically doesn't produce the expected result (may have no effect)
if character caching is enabled.

Halftone patterns "flip over" at the 50% coverage point, producing
anomalous visual effects on some color devices.

We have not been able to test 2-, 4-, and 16-bit memory devices as
thoroughly as 1-, 8-, 24-, and 32-bit devices; please report any
problems.

Opening more than one window device at the same time doesn't work.
This is the case for both X Windows and Microsoft Windows.

Non-graphics bugs
-----------------

restore doesn't properly undo currentgstate.

copy doesn't handle gstates.


  3 Responses to “Category : DeskTop Publishing in the 1990's
Archive   : GS252INI.ZIP
Filename : README.DOC

  1. Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!

  2. This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.

  3. But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/