nroff drivers

[Chris Lewis]

In article <5134 at ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> cck at deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
>The problem:

>SCO troff and nroff come with drivers for nifty devices like the CAT
>photo typesetter and the model 33 Teletype. Unfortunately, I do not
>have access to the Smithsonian Institution, where I presume such
>devices can be found....

>Rhetorical question:

>Should I keep my copy of SCO (classic) troff in the hope that
>collecting quaint, but otherwise useless software, achieves the cult
>status (and value) of first edition comic books, green-tinted cut
>class, useless farm implements, or any other of the high-priced
>{junk|artifacts} one can find in "antique" shops along Cal 49 in the
>Gold Country?

Actually, no.  classic troff is quite useful.  See point (3) below.

This is your alternatives I've garnered from experience and playing around 
with such things:

	1) Get ditroff (couple hundred bucks) and search around for
	   some drivers.  One driver of particular fame and excellence
	   is Rick Richardson's "jettroff", which takes ditroff input
	   and produces hplj output.  I've seen some of its output,
	   and it is just about as good as you can get on a 300 dpi
	   laser (even a postscript one).  Rick sells a supported
	   version of jetroff for about $50 (different pricing for
	   commercial environments) which includes fonts.

	   This is some of Rick's contact info:

		PC Research, Inc.
		94 Apple Orchard Drive
		Tinton Falls, NJ   07724

		(201) 389-8963

	   There is a shareware version available via anon uucp.
	   I won't post Rick's blurb because it's kinda large, it's
	   probably out of date, and I'll get flamed for commercial
	   advertising.  It might be a good time for him to post it, 
	   or at least readvertise its existance and how to get it.

	2) If you have a postscript printer, obtain ditroff and a copy
	   of tpscript (from comp.sources.unix archives, issues v15i013-017
	   I think).  tpscript is a PD ditroff->postscript converter.
	   tpscript is an excellent package.

	3) H'mm, you can't afford ditroff, let alone a postscript printer.
	   Well, have I got a solution for you:

	    1) In the queue on comp.sources.unix is "psroff", a back-end
	       for classic CAT Troff, which will generates ditroff,
	       postscript and HPLJ codes.  Works very well.  It should,
	       I wrote it ;-)  We've been using it quite heavily in production
	       (technical reports, memos, and some pretty fancy publishing)
	       for about 8 months.

	    2) If you have a HPLJ-compatible printer, I would not particularly
	       recommend psroff's HPLJ's driver, because it doesn't know about
	       font downloading yet (hopefully some kind soul out there will 
	       help me implement true font support into the HPLJ driver).  
	       Though, if you have all of the fonts and sizes you need on a 
	       floppy or a cartridge, psroff will drive a hplj just fine.

	       However, if you use jetroff as the back-back-end, and psroff 
	       generating ditroff output, you've got full blown troff capability
	       typesetting.
	    
	    3) If you have a postscript printer, psroff works very well.
	       Alternately, you can use psroff ditroff output with tpscript.
	       (though, there shouldn't be much difference - I stole a bit
	       from it).
	
	    4) The only problem with CAT->something filters, however, is
	       you don't get some of the new ditroff features, like
	       generalized drawing, eg: I don't think either pic or grap
	       would work, but the only way to get them is to get ditroff
	       anyhow.

	4) There are other CAT->something filters, but they either ain't
	   free (by a substantial margin) or they aren't as good as psroff.
	   (natch ;-)

	5) I keep seeing questions going by about ASCII -> postscript -
	   comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.misc have quite a few.
	   tpscript comes with a couple which are quite good.

You mention that you have a NEC.  Is it a 890?  If so, run it in
postscript mode and use psroff.
-- 
Chris Lewis, R.H. Lathwell & Associates: Elegant Communications Inc.
UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis
Phone: (416)-595-5425