9:00am
to 3:30pm ExecutLve
DLnLng RoomEL Segundo,
Ca.... -WAW
XEROX
Whole ALTO World Newsletter
Technology and Tools
MAY 31, 1978
SPECIAL NOTES
Xerox Private Data
FONT CHANGE COMMING· As detailed in the attached paper on printing, PARC will be changing its printing fonts on June 15th. Similar changes are expected to occur at other sites at about the same time. This will require that everyone retrieve a new Fonts.widths file on each of their disks soon after local Spruce installers announce the change at their sites. Users with old Fonts.widths will find their output rather unattractive as a result of bad spacing and ragged edges.
GENERAL NOTES
WHOLE ALTO WORLD MEETING· The Whole Alto World meeting will be held on June 1 at the Cockatoo Inn near the EI Segundo facility. Our host is Dick Sonderegger, SDD. See next month's Newsletter for an account of the happenings.
TOOLS HARDWARE
ALTO BUILD . An 8th build will take place during the last quarter of this year.
Requirements should have been made known to Terry Haney, SPG, by June 1. The configuration is being altered slightly by replacing the current keyboard with an Alto I form/function compatible keyboard and deleting the five- finger keyset. Transport trays, a rolling platform for the Alto which still permits it to be placed under a table, may be ordered as an option.
SOFTWARE
In general, the subsystems, packages, and documentation indicated here will be available from your local IVY server under the directories
<
Alto> and<
AltoDocs>. If they are not available, or if you arc in doubt as to the version, they may be retrieved from [MAXC](same directories). Files stored under other directories are on [MAXC] unless otherwise indicated, e.g. [XEOS].
NEW RELEASE: GyPSY . This subsystem has been significantly enhanced so it is being reported here rather than under ReReleases. GyPSY is a text editor originally derived from an early version of Bravo. It is modeless, that is, you don't have to enter "i" before inserting text, followed by ESC when finished; just position the cursor and type. It has only simple formatting facilities, so it is more suited to programming than document creation. It also provides a hierarchical file facility to group documents, Le. files, into "folders".
One of the enhancements enables GyPSY to replace Executive.run. Replacing Bravo and Executi ve with GyPSY will free over 200 disk pages, reduce typing, and integrate source code editing and compilation activities. After booting, the screen will contain several Find and Execute menu items (seethe attached hardcopy of the GyPSY screen). Bugging an Execute
Whole ALTO World Newsletter
@i;Q~ ~VII!. Xerox Private~O'v Data item will cause the subsystem in the associated { ... } to be run. Bugging a Find item will cause that folder to be retrieved and a new screen will be displayed containing a Fetch menu item for each file. Bugging Fetch will open the associated file for editing. These menu lists can be expanded by the user at will.
GyPSY permits text within the file to be "executed"; simply select the text and bug Do It (in the window above the text window). For example, if the text selected is a compile command, contained as a COlnment in the source file, the compiler will be called after automatically updating the changes. Following compilation, control is returned to GyPSY. Bugging Find and F'etch opens the file for additional editing as necessary. A second text window can be opened so that both the source and error files can be viewed simultaneously.
A "hardcopy" facility will immediately format and transmit the current file to a printer, Of Empress can be used to print a GyPSY file. GyPSY formatted hardcopy is in a double column format.
Due to its bulk, the documentation is not reproduced here. Retrieve < AltoDocs>GYPsY.press.
NEW RELEASE: HARDCOPY· This subsystem, designed by Jay Israel to save you keystrokes and concentration, will automatically invoke the Bravo "hardcopy" command from the Alto EXECUTIVE. It will also call FTP if necessary to retrieve files from a shared file server such as MAXC or Ivy. Retrieve <Alto> Hardcopy.run. The documentation is appended to the Newsletter.
NEW RELEASE: SO~FTBITBLT • This package, consisting of three files by Dave Boggs, emulates the BitBlt instruction in software. It can be retrieved by loading
< Alto> SoftBitBlt.dm. The documentation is attached to the Newsletter.
ReRcleases . Subsystems
EMPRESS· The changes are of a minor, internal nature. The documentation is unchanged.
GOBBLE· A part of the SIL system, Gobble has been modified to treat F- ICType identically to N- ICType so that the same DicLAnalyse can be used for GOBBLE and ROUTE. Retrieve
< SIL>Gobble.fun. The documentation is unchanged.
GyPSY· Extensive enhancements have been made which enables press output of hardcopy and permits GyPSY'S use in lieu of Executive.run. See the GyPSY entry under NEW RELEASE for a more detailed discussion. Load <Alto>GYPSY.dm and the new documentation,
<
AltoDocs> GYPsY.press.MENUEDIT - A part of the BCPL MENU package, this releases corrects isolated cases in which DeBs wre incorrectly written~ See the MENU package below.
MICROD . The nature of the changes are unknown to me. Retrieve
<
Alto> Microd.run. The documentation is unchanged.READPRESS . The new version fixes a bug in the interpretation of the SkipControlBytes command. Retrieve <Alto> ReadPresS.run. The documentation is unchanged.
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Whole ALTO World Newsletter
ReReleases • Packages
Xerox Private Data
MENU· This version, 1.2, uses BitBlt to manipulate the screen, permits the use of a colon in a string, generates default names if required, and no longer generates zero DCBs. It is compatible with the previous version. Load
<
Alto> Menu.dm. The documentation is unchanged.TECHNOLOGY
This month's paper is on printing within the Xerox Alto community. Dan Swinehart, Joe Maleson, Patrick Baudelaire, and Edward Fiala have put together on overview of existing hardware and software with an extensive list of references and a glossary. Although it has many references to PARC specific items, it is a basic document whose breadth should make it of interest to all who use the Alto.
The Whole Alto World Newsletter is a monthly publication for Xerox employees that use the Alto. It is not to be shown to non- Xerox people. Copies are available on [MAXC] < AltoDocs> WAWnews.press or may be obtained from the editor, Frank Ludolph, XEOS, by messaging <Ludolph> or calling Intelnet 8*923- 4356.
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To From Subject Filed As
PARC/SDD
XEROX
PALO ALTO RESEARCH CENTER Computer Science Laboratory
May 11, 1978
Dan Swinehart, Joe Maleson, Patrick Baudelaire, and Edward Fiala Printing at Palo Alto
[ Maxc]
<
Gr- Docs> Printing.PressThis document has the twofold aim of describing the printing facilities that are currently available, and of announcing two major impending changes.
Key Points
We are currently in transition from one major printing format (EARS) to another (Press), with a corresponding introduction of new printing hardware (Dover. Pimlico. Sequoia). Some aspects of this transition will affect users quite a bit, some very little. All will of course affect those who produce formatted files.
One upcoming change that will have substantial effect on the entire community will be the distribution, on June 15, of a new Fonts.Widths file, correcting the width specifications for our major document fonts. Previously produced Press files should continue to print reasonably accurately, although they may not do so forever. Subsystems that create Press files will be required to supply the current date (machine readable format) in a new field within each new Press file.
Another Inajor impact will be felt as the Ears system is decommissioned on the same date (June 15, 1978). It will be possible to convert most EARS format files to Prcss fonnat, and thus to print them. This includes all new EARS files that are produced by the Pub system, and most if not all previously created ones.
A modification of printing resolution (from 350 to 384 dots/inch) for Dover and Sequoia printers will limit printing to the lower 10.6" of each page; information in the top .4" will be lost. This is expected to affect very few documents.
The sections that follow survey the current state of Printing Formats and Transmission Protocols, Fonts, Printing and Formatting Programs, Printer Types, and Impending Changes.
Appendices supply a variety of useful information, including a comprehensive glossary of terms associated with page imaging. There is also a bibliography of related documents and manuals. Feel free to skim or skip those sections that do not appear to be of interest.
Printing Formats using EARS format, by creating suitable "type faces" containing the required patterns. Ears can handle most Alto screen resolution bit maps in this way. brightness (obtained with half- tone shading methods) and color characteristics. Characters to be printed are specified by name. Custom shapes may be included by sending their splines and margin settings, column settings, landcape/portrait selection, font selection, underlining, etc. A document heading may override default selections for user identification, file identification, etc.
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At present, only the printing subsystem on Maxcl or Maxc2 (see Formatting Programs, below) will honor Pspool format, and then only for files to be sent to Ears. A Press version should be complete by June 15.
Transmission Protocols
A printer is classified as a "server" if it can operate unattended, accepting files sent to it over the internetwork using a Pup- based protocol. Otherwise it is a "stand- alone" printer, requiring each user to attend its operation.
The user of a stand- alone printer may choose any available transmission program to transfer files to the printer's local disk. The Ftp program [Boggs/Taft], using the FTP protocol [Shochl], is preferred because of its speed, utility, and availability - - it is the only protocol currently used by the I FS systems.
All server systems currently use a simpler protocol, EFTP protocol [Shoch2], which is more easily incorporated into sending programs like Bravo that are tight for space. The EFTP protocol provides only for the transmission of file data. Thus the only identification information available to the server is information contained in the file itself. This, combined with some limitations in Press format, has caused some difficulty in properly identifying the sender of documents to Press printers.
A final protocol, known as EARS protocol [Taft2], is honored by all servers. It provides a means whereby user programs can determine a server's current status.
See the Formatting Programs section for more information about protocol usage.
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Fonts
High resolution raster representations of fonts comprise many bits, and are device dependent;
for these reasons font rasters are not included in Press files. Instead, fonts are specified by family name, a numberic code specifying type face (bold, italic, regular, etc.), point size, and rotation. An extensive description of font issues can be found in [Sprou1l4]. Two representations exist for fonts: outlines (described by graphic commands including spline curves) and rasters (or "bit maps"). Along with the description of character shape according to one of these representations, positional information is needed. A variety of file formats are presently used for storing this font information. Sometimes several fonts are included in a single file, called a dictionary. PrePress [Sprou112] is a program which converts among the various formats, and performs some bookkeeping operations for font dictionaries. Press format allows up to 16 different fonts per entity (a page subgrouping). When more than 16 independent fonts (outlines) omit {point- size}. The extension indicates the format (see below) of the font representation. For device- dependent (e.g., bit map) representations, the standard conventions contain no clue to the orientation, resolution, etc., of the font.
An alternate font naming convention is used to expand the code describing the type face, in Press files and in some of the formats below. This convention uses a three letter code, selecting from the orthogonal attributes
(bold/medium/regular, italic/regular, condensed/regular! expanded). In the TimesRoman10B example, this face code is thus BRR. See [Sprou114] for the precise mapping between this code and the actual numeric specifications used in Press and in font dictionaries.
Formats
The format of a file is indicated by its extension. Standard formats include:
.SF Outline representations edited with FRED (device- independent) .
. SD Compact outline representations, produced by PrePress from .SF files (device-independent) .
Raster representations -in Alto (CONVERT) format . Raster representations in Alto (BITBLT) format.
EARS- format portrait font (run- coded raster).
EARS- format landscape font (run- coded raster) .
Example: Helvetica12I.EP is a 12- point Helvetica font for EARS (face code MIR).
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Resolution
While raster representations can be automatically converted from outline descriptions, this process is not performed efficiently with present hardware. In addition, some hand tuning of a scan converted font often improves its appearance. Therefore, each Press printer is expected to have local raster copies of all necessary fonts, converted to whatever resolution is appropriate. Although Press format allows users to include personal fonts in outline form, Spruce software does not implement this feature. The Orbit printers (Dover, Sequoia, Pimlico - - see [Ornstein] and discussion below) generally run at 384 dots per inch. Dovers currently running 350 dots will soon be converted to 384 (see issues and plans, below). The Orbit hardware supports a maximum of 4096 dots per scan line, and so limits printing length to 10.6" at 384 dots.
Widths
There is one problem with keeping fonts external to Press files: the width of a character is not specified locally, and formatting programs need to know character widths for things like text justification. This information is kept in a file named Fonts.Widths. Any changes to the width information (for purposes of standardization or aesthetic appeal) will alter the appearance of Press files which were produced using different widths. This is currently a major problem, as we attempt to reach compatibility with the printing world. Additional incompatabilities are the printing world's two kinds of spaces (numeric and regular), different characters for hyphen and minus, and the use of ligatures (multiple character combinations like "ae" or "ff") and kerning (sometimes called "optical spacing" - - altering inter- character spacing for specific pairs of characters).
A list of the standard fonts to be available on printers in PARe beginning June 15 is contained in an appendix. More may be added, to all or some, as time goes on.
Printing Programs
The Sears program [Riderl] operates the Ears printers as a server, spooling and printing EARS format files (using the EFTP protocol).
There are two programs that accept Press format files: Press [Sproulll] and Spruce [ Swinehartl] .
Press
This program, the older of the two, will accept and render nearly all Press specifications, including color (results depend on the printer). Press is a stand- alone program, whose intended application is the production of high- quality, high- resolution graphical images. Press is available on most of the printers described in the following section, except for the very fast ones (see Printers, below). Press does not operate as a "spooling" network service program, and is therefore not the printing program of choice for high- volume text printing.
Spruce
Spruce is intended as a printing service system, primarily for printing office documents. It accepts a subset of Press files including text characters, rectangles, and most Alto screen resolution bit maps. It does not handle splines or arbitrary bit patterns, nor does it honor brightness and color requests (but see the note below). Enterprising users could obtain limited line- drawing capability by creating and using appropriate "spline fonts". Spruce operates only on printers controlled by Alto 11/ Orbit hardware (see Printers, below).
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AIS
Continuous tone images which have been digitized are stored as an Array of Intensity Samples.
AlS format is used to store such images. Included in an AIS file are various data about the image which are important for accurate reproduction. Software is available which prints AIS files using a variety of half toning techniques. Halftoning simulates various gray tones using only one ink color by varying the amount of ink in an area proportional to the original intensity. By halftonitig several different color separations, a wide range of hues can be achieved.
Color Note
Press format allows specification of hue (color) as well as intensity. The. Press program implements this feature directly on the Pimlico printers (see below). An interim measure has been used, in Spruce for Pimlico and in Press for the Colorado system (see below), to produce color images. In these systems, three or four Press pages, one per color (sometimes including black) are required for each printed page. A full conversion to direct color specification support is expected for Spruce.
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Formatting Programs
M axe Programs
The Pspool program [Fialal] runs as a background job on the M axe systems, formatting and transmitting documents to printers as they appear on the (PRINTER) directory. Files are placed there either explicitly or in response the attempts of programs to write to the LPT:
device. Files already in EARS or Press format may be sent to an appropriate printing server.
Press format files may, alternatively, be converted to EARS format and sent to the Ears server.
Psj?Ool format may be converted into either EARS or Press format and sent (see the information on Doegen, below). Pspool will add necessary .EP or .EL files (EARS font descriptions) to a file on its way to Ears, if that information is not already in the file. It will use the Doeulist section of the EARS file to decide what to send.
The EPress program is invoked by Pspool to translate Press format files into EARS format for printing on Ears. This conversion is automatic. The user has the option to save the resulting EARS file.
The standard way to direct text or pre- formatted files to printing servers is to run the Ears, Press, List, or Copy commands. These programs do intelligent things about selecting files with the proper extensions, embedding appropriate header information in EARS files, etc. Headings, page numbers, margin trnasformations and size reduction are also available through the Ears command.
The Printer Status command will indicate the names of files spooled on the (PRINTER) directory and of recently printed files, and the state of the most recently active printing server.
Respool may be used to retransmit a file that was send for printing but did not get printed correctly for some reason.
The Pub [Tesler] formatting program is a batch processing system that is useful in formatting large documents, especially if they need indices or cross- reference, or if they are going to be updated frequently. Pub will produce plain text output (for on-line perusal) or EARS format output, including a Doculist that Pspool can use to include the necessary fonts. Once the Ears system is gone, production of Pub-formatted documents will of necessity be a two- stage process, producing first the EARS format file on M axe, then a Press format file on an Alto
using PressEd it (below). - -
-Docgen.Prt
Pspool often needs additional information about a user's printing preferences before it can perform its tasks. When sending Press files, for instance, Pspool must know what server to send them to. Although it is always possible to specify these options directly, it is useful to be able to default them. The system provides global defaults for each option. The user may specify different ones by creating a Maxe file called Doegen.Prt. The system defaults and the format of Docgen.Prt may be found in [Fiala2].
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AI to Programs information and produce the appropriate "color separated" Press file.
User.Cm point size argument, and the third, face specification argUlnent are optional. The face argument
User.Cm point size argument, and the third, face specification argUlnent are optional. The face argument