OT: Ghostscript, won't install

I sure can cope with it. But why should I slosh through a muddy creek when there is a nice clean bridge 100ft away? When I asked here I thought there is an easy fix but that doesn't seem to be the case. And as I said my counterpart at the client also has printing struggles with PS and he grew up with chip design, Mentor output and all that.

So we just go PDF and PNG, problem fixed.

I can mark-up PDF. Can you ?:-) ...Jim Thompson

Only you QRO guys... :-)

Yes, although you has to figure that if PostScript had become more popular, programs such as GhostScript would already come with the OS itself, just as a very large number of printer drivers do.

Many secretaries today would probably freak out over having to use something like Word or WordPerfect for DOS. :-)

Agreed, that was a very large part of the PC's and -- later -- Window's success.

Although the guys doing chip designs, I think, already had UNIX workstations when PCs were becoming popular in the mid- to late-'80s there...

These days computers are so cheap the cost difference often doesn't matter that much; I think the free software guys sometimes fail to appreciate this: If you just hired a guy for, say, $100k fully-burdened cost per year, whether you give him a PC running a $100 OS or a free OS is just down in the noise.

On the other hand, when folks in third-world countries are choosing OSes, their realistic choices today are usually "pirate a copy of Windows" or "use a free copy of Linux." I sure wish that more of them would choose the later option...

Yeah, I believe you're correct there... although interestingly UNIX-based OSes seem poised to completely take over the cell phone handset market.

---Joel

Peace-a-cake: Copy into MS-Paint or whatever graphics program, annotate

-> email it off as PNG.

I think one of my programs allows PDF writes but the method above is fast, and easy. Also allows anyone else to add their own notes.

Yes. Luckily kilowatt-hours cost less back then. Just had a discussion with our utility about the SmartMeter and the recent bill.

That's what batch files and Post-Its were invented for :-)

Later there were programs (Sidekick?) that let you you start programs from a DOS menu bar. But I never needed that. What I did have was a multi-tasker so I could have the WP, Orcad and whatever else I needed open.

The ones I dealt with had huge Mentor Graphics mainframes. Huge. No idea what they were running on but it was all foreign to me until the CAD was running.

I'd make sure it's XP or something with that sort of robustness, whatever it takes.

They won't use either. Africans have told me that computers over there must be bush-proof. One non-negotiable trait must be that it can tolerate a sudden or intermittent power loss and any given moment. That pretty much leaves DOS as the OS of choice. A UPS is out of the question as that costs the equivalent of a month's family budget.

Oh yes, portable devices are game, and MS hasn't exactly excelled in that domain IMHO.

And it loses search-ability.

Peace is pax vobiscum... piece is the other kind of white meat ;-)

...Jim Thompson

For the usual chip design review rounds that won't matter.

Yeah, sorry, I'm tired. Another crisis call, some obscure failure. No pax there :-)

But pax vobiscum? And here I thought you weren't religious at all ...

do

the

all

them.

Being without a religion doesn't make one ignorant of religion.

I've observed service in most Judeo-Christian varieties, even in a Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, France ;-)

And there are Jews, Catholics and Presbyterians in my _immediate_ family. ...Jim Thompson

Please remember, HPGL was(is) (only) stroke graphics for pen plotters; if you wanted text that was also stroke graphics going to the device.

Maybe, when i was at speed i was fast and accurate with a LARGE tablet and puck with some keyboard entry. Far faster than i ever was with a pencil and associated tools.

Poor Joerg, he was born with a silver *PHUT* in his mouth :-)

With properly created PDF's, Acrobat can add/change text as well as add forms with nice colored frames to call attention. I do it all the time. ...Jim Thompson

True, but then Jorge had a depraved childhood. ;-)

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

It's forced him to become that much better of a designer/troubleshooter for his customers' designs so that they don't get PHUT, then? :-)

Seems all his *PHUT-ing* is software related.

Never seen a person with so much install/crash/cockpit issues. ...Jim Thompson

Huh? Not at all. You tend to say things without knowing about them. I had a great childhood and I am very grateful to my parents for that.

Part of my income is derived for *PHUT* calls :-)

I know, and that was (is) perfectly fine. I still use HPGL in the lab, for the output from instruments. Ok, if you wanted text searchability you'd need OCR but that ain't rocket science anymore these days. In fact, even in the very early 90's I had a nice OCR program from Logitech.

Yep. Poor doesn't make you depraved. It does make you creative. ...Jim Thompson

We weren't poor but my parents believed in the fact that spoiling kids is not good (so do I).