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GNU Ghostscript 2.6.1 Amiga port, revised 29 January 1994
=========================================================
This port requires:
- An Amiga equipped with an '020 CPU or any successor CPU model and and
Kickstart 2.04 or higher.
- Approx. 4.7 MBytes of hard disk space available.
- A minimum of 1 MByte of chip memory, depending on what you will want to
do with the interpreter. Printer output requires at least 2 MBytes of
contiguous memory (any memory, not necessarily chip memory).
- ixemul.library and a bunch of Postscript/Ghostscript fonts.
New features in the revised v2.6.1 release
------------------------------------------
By public request I have recompiled the program to use the built-in math
library, so you no longer need an FPU to run the program. I also took a
closer look at the code which tries to determine the printer page
resolution: you will no longer have trouble with printers featuring
built-in paper tractors. I tried all printer drivers to be found on the
Workbench disk to make sure the printer support code really works. Good
luck! Some small bugs were ironed out and I also took the time to add
support for another two display drivers (the Picasso II driver which
requires the Picasso monitor driver v2.14 to work correctly and the
`custom' driver which requires asl.library v38 to be installed). The entire
program was recompiled using GCC 2.4.5.
New Amiga features in release v2.6.1
------------------------------------
The v2.6.0 port used to implement only monochrome drivers, the v2.6.1 port
supports colour output on most devices, exceptions where noted. You don't
need a special brand of graphics hardware expansion, colour output will
work on any Amiga model, provided there is enough memory available. All
devices capable of doing colour output will reduce the number of colours to
be displayed if in dire need of memory. As for the display oriented devices
this will go mostly unnoticed as the Ghostscript halftoning algorithms will
compensate for any colour reductions. However, printer output quality is
very likely to suffer from colour reduction. So, watch out!
As the display oriented devices start up in colour output mode, black &
white rendering may be slightly slowed. The printer device is configured
according to the Preferences settings; `Black & white' will result in
monochrome output, `Grayscale 1' and `Grayscale 2' will also produce
monochrome output but will internally use a true colour representation of
the page, so does `Color'. Please note that `true colour' refers to the
Amiga 12 bit colour model, at this time of writing 24 bit colour printing
is not yet implemented.
The default output device (a super-bitmap window to opened on the
default public screen, such as Workbench) will take advantage of the
Kickstart 3.0 pen sharing feature if enough colours (eight or more)
are available.
The v2.6.0 port used to rely on printer drivers to initialize their maximum
page size information upon startup. Several users reported problems with
certain drivers which would make this information available only after
having been asked to do so. The v2.6.1 port now follows the programmers'
guidelines how to determine the maximum page size closely. The driver may
still complain if configured for `Grayscale 1', `Grayscale 2' or `Color'
output and there is not enough memory available for the page to be
displayed.
Installation
------------
Enter the command line interpreter, Create a directory on your hard disk
drive, label it "ghostscript". Let's assume that the fully qualified name
of this directory will be "Work:ghostscript". Enter this directory and
unpack the archive "gs-2.6.1-amiga.lha". This will create the directory
"doc" which contains the Ghostscript documentation files, and the directory
"examples" which is to hold some Postscript example files. To add the fonts
from the Ghostscript distribution (not included in this release) create a
directory called "Fonts" in the directory "Work:ghostscript" and copy all
the font files into it. You also need the `ixemul.library' included in the
Amiga GCC distribution which should be copied to the `Libs:' directory. Now
edit your `S:User-Startup' file, adding the following lines:
Assign ghostscript: "Work:ghostscript"
Path ghostscript: add
Save the file back to disk and reboot your machine.
Running the interpreter
-----------------------
Enter the command line interpreter, type "gs" and press return. The
interpreter will be loaded and will try to initialize itself. If
successfully initialized, a window should have been opened on the Workbench
screen. The Shell window now should display the following text:
Initializing... done.
Ghostscript 2.6.1 (5/28/93)
Copyright (C) 1990-1993 Aladdin Enterprises, Menlo Park, CA.
All rights reserved.
Ghostscript comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file COPYING for details.
GS>
At the command prompt, enter "(ghostscript:examples/golfer.ps) run" and
press return. Click on the `Zoom' button in the top right corner of the
window to bring it to full screen size, move the scrollers and watch what
will happen. When rendering is finished, the Shell window will display the
following text:
>>showpage, press <return> to continue<<
Press return to erase the contents of the window and to continue. The
interpreter will be in interactive mode again, enter "quit" and press
return to end this session.
For more information refer to the documentation in the "ghostscript:doc"
drawer.
How to print a document
-----------------------
As the corresponding Ghostscript device will always keep the entire page in
memory the printer need not be capable of strip-printing. The bad news is
that the entire page will consume *a lot* of memory. This Amiga port will
keep the page in any public memory area, so it will not necessarily eat up
precious chip memory. This should make it possible to print pages on Amigas
with only 1 MByte of chip memory or less, provided enough fast memory is
available.
Enter the command line interpreter, type "gs -sDEVICE=amiga_printer" and
press return. This will invoke the Ghostscript interpreter with the
"amiga_printer" device driver selected as the startup device. When the
command prompt appears, enter "(ghostscript:examples/butterfly.ps) run" and
press return. The rendered image will be sent to the printer. When printing
is finished, press return and enter "quit" to end this session.
Note: unless you want Ghostscript to prompt you to press return after each
page is printed and ejected you should include "-dNOPAUSE" on the command
line.
Available device drivers
------------------------
This port implements the following nine device drivers:
amiga
(This is the default output device)
Rendering takes place in a super-bitmap window to be opened on the
Workbench screen. This window contains scroller handles to move
around in the bitmap. Usually, the bitmap will be four times as large
as the screen the window opens upon.
amiga_low
Renders into a low-resolution custom screen.
amiga_high
Renders into a high-resolution custom screen.
amiga_super
Renders into a super-high-resolution custom screen.
amiga_a2024¹
Renders into an A2024 resolution custom screen.
amiga_picassoii
Renders into a Picasso II custom screen (note: a plain Intuition
custom screen will be opened, this driver will not directly access
the Picasso II hardware). The Picasso monitor driver v2.14 is
required for this driver to work.
amiga_custom
Unlike the other display drivers which will open screens in
predefined resolutions and modes the `amiga_custom' driver will let
you select the display mode to use. On first invocation of the driver
a screen mode requester will be opened for you to select the display
mode to use. The name