19 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
19 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
PostScript
|
|
|
|
n. A page description language, based on work originally done by John
|
|
Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in 1976, evolving through JaM ( John and
|
|
Martin , Martin Newell) at XEROX PARC , and finally implemented in its
|
|
current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe
|
|
Systems Incorporated in 1982. PostScript gets its leverage by using a full
|
|
programming language, rather than a series of low-level escape sequences, to
|
|
describe an image to be printed on a laser printer or other output device
|
|
(in this it parallels EMACS , which exploited a similar insight about
|
|
editing tasks). It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly
|
|
rasterization, from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality fonts at low
|
|
(e.g. 300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed that hand-tuned bitmap
|
|
fonts were required for this task). Hackers consider PostScript to be among
|
|
the most elegant hacks of all time, and the combination of technical merits
|
|
and widespread availability has made PostScript the language of choice for
|
|
graphical output.
|
|
|