> > > for Ghostscript' labels on them too. The only problem was HP being anal
> > > about the protocol they use.
> > And what about the Oki GDI printers? Don't they implement the GDI printer
> > APIs?
>
> As far as we can tell so far the answer is no. They use GDI to draw a bitmap
> and drive the printer with the bitmap. The point of so called 'GDI' printers
> is to make the printer as stupid as possible. You'd don't do that by writing
> windows for printers you do it by using the device independant graphics engine
> to render a bitmap and then feed it to the printer.
I see. But that makes the printer virtually unusable on most other platforms
than it was designed for? So, to use it on Linux one would have to implement
the GDI engine?
And what about video cards that implement in hardware functions traditionally
found in the software driver? They certainly give better performance but they
are tied to one particular OS interface - such cards exist, so what other OSes
trying to use the card have to do? They need to implement the interface used
on the other OS, thus effectively giving up their original solutions and
interfaces - which would not always be a gain.
best wishes, marek
--- Writing software is more fun than working.
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