PostScript 3 Emulation

[asarch]

What does it mean?

If a printer says this on its technical specifications does it means that this printer is a "PostScript compliant printer"?

[dkeav]

yep

its not native support, but you wont notice

[asarch]

A printer with this emulation will it works well like a "full PostScript" one?

[dkeav]

yes

you should be able to send it filename.ps with your printer daemon lpd/cups whatever you use

for example i print directly to a pool of HP laserjet 4200's in a lab next to my office from netbsd, from firefox just printing straight ps files

[asarch]

And why the emulation and why not a full "implementation" of this language?

Is it because the emulation is cheaper than the full implementation?

[bwkaz]

I'm guessing it says "emulation" because it takes PS input on whatever port you hook it up with, turns it into HP-PCL or some other internal printer control language, then uses that to drive its print heads. But as long as it takes PS input, you'll never be able to tell the difference between a printer that works like that, and a printer that drives its print heads directly from the PS code.

I am guessing that it's like Intel-compatible CPU cores. They don't use a RISC instruction set, because Intel never did, and they all need to remain backward compatible. But RISC CPUs are much, much easier to speed up. So what Intel did (starting with the Pentium, I believe) was to put a RISC core into the processor, then tack on a front-end that translated the old x86 machine code into a more RISC-like machine code, for the real RISC core to handle. The translation unit is what generates the "microcode" that you may have heard of before.

There would be less work for them if they just changed the instruction set over to a real RISC one. But that would break every program that's already been compiled, so they'll never do it.

Anyway, you could just call the manufacturer and ask them if the printer will take PS input directly. That would be better than relying on my guesses, anyway.