The feel of a LispM/List of running machines

[David Gadbois]

   Date: Thu, 01 May 1997 13:28:13 -0700
   From: Mike McDonald <mikemac@titian.engr.sgi.com>

   Printers didn't live in a "printer's directory". They were
   represented by namespace object, along with hosts, users, and
   sites.  Theyre were commands to print files and do screen dumps
   (anyone else hack LPGs?). Since this was before the days of
   PostScript, if you had a PS printer hooked up and wanted to
   generate specific PS for it, you'd have to do that yourself.

Actually, the PostScript support got really good by release 8.  For
example, I just did:

(with-open-stream (stream (send (net:find-object-named :printer "TIMES")
				:make-hardcopy-stream nil))
  (dw:format-graph-from-root
    '(a (b (c)) (d (e)))
    #'(lambda (object stream) (princ (car object) stream))
    #'cdr
    :stream stream))

and a nice graph came out on my HP LaserJet.  The thing to note here
is that the high-level graphics don't (have to) care how the low-level
rendering gets done.  They work equally well writing to the console,
an X display, or whatever else happens to follow the graphics stream
protocol.  CLIM, which is a descendent of Dynamic Windows, does an
even better job of this.

--David Gadbois