Versatec usage (summary)

[Adrian Pell]

Thanks to all the people who replied to my question on usage of Versatec
printer/plotters.  Credits at the end.  Here's a summary:

1) What software do you use?

	The general standard seems to be vtroff (from Berkeley, see
	below), which is a postprocessor for troff.  Other software
	used it [dt]itroff, the device-independent typesetter package
	of Kernighan, vplot, pic, ideal, DIGS (Device Independent
	Graphics System).

2) Who supplies it?

	Vtroff comes from Berkeley in the 4.xBSD distributions, although
	not in the 2.xBSD distributions (why?).  It's reputed to be
	available from Tom Ferrin at UC San Francisco (ucbvax!ucsfcgl!tef),
	for the 11's.  (Tom, are you out there?)  Vplot is in Berkely
	or SIII;  pic, ideal and [dt]itroff are available (maybe) from AT&T;
	DIGS comes from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
	- no details of availability.

3) Will it fit on a PDP11/44?
	
	It seems that it will - well most of it.  Vtroff and vplot
	are known to be working on I?D 11's.  Some bits of the rest
	are too.

4) How much of a drain on the system is it?

	If you have a lightly loaded 780, not a lot.  A bit more on
	the smaller CPU's!  Vtroff generates a lot of output (figures
	of .5-1 MB per foot have been mentioned), and if you can't
	generate it fast enough to drive the printer direct you'll
	need some (large) temporary file space.  (The Versatec needs
	to be kept moving, otherwise black lines result).  Suggestions
	that vtroff is about double the load of troff which is about
	double the load of nroff seem to be sustained.

5) Reliability?

	Opinions on reliability seem very subjective.  It probably
	depends on how good your engineer is, or whether the animal
	was made on a Friday afternoon, ...  There are bad experiences:
	lack of intensity, slipping paper, power supplies burning
	out; but there are also good experiences.  You take your choice.


Thanks to:

vax135!ukc!root44!pdl
philabs!mcvax!jaap
philabs!mcvax!teus
ihnp4!kpno!downey
decwrl!qubix!msc
duke!dbl
decwrl!turtlevax!ken
utcsstat!laura
vax135!edcaad!edmrc!jimp
utcsstat!geoff
harpo!presby!burdvax!puder
ucbvax!UCBERNIE:carl

for taking the trouble to reply.

Adrian Pell		({vax135,mcvax}!ukc!ru-cs44!adrian)
Dept of Computer Science
University of Reading
England