Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!news.mixmin.net!news.albasani.net!newsfeed.freenet.ag!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!npeer-ng0.de.kpn-eurorings.net!feed.news.schlund.de!schlund.de!news.online.de!not-for-mail
From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: viewing PostScript files on VMS 7.3-2
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:56:10 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Multivax C&R
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <ip5tqq$8bn$1@online.de>
References: <ip4j4d$oap$1@online.de> <4db60917$0$12958$c3e8da3$9deca2c3@news.astraweb.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pd9e24a2f.dip0.t-ipconnect.de
X-Trace: online.de 1303804570 8567 217.226.74.47 (26 Apr 2011 07:56:10 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: abuse@einsundeins.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:56:10 +0000 (UTC)
Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.os.vms:2391 comp.lang.postscript:147

In article <4db60917$0$12958$c3e8da3$9deca2c3@news.astraweb.com>, JF
Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> writes: 

> You are correct that after 7.2, display postscript was no longer
> available on VMS. Prior to 7.3, there was a "view" utility that let you
> view postscript as well as CDA documents. So you woudln't need
> ghostscript for it.

OK, but this seems more or less independent of GS, GV etc.

> 
> 2- Your font encodings can be greatly simplied since Postscript Level 2:
> (and some would say it isn't even necessary).

Thanks; I'll investigate.  The plotting program was written (not by me;
I inherited it from a former colleague) mostly in the late 1980s in
Fortran 77.  I don't know what the PostScript standard was like then.  I 
have seen many plots made with PGPLOT, gnuplot etc but prefer the ones 
made with this code, both for their appearance and for the comfort 
(there is an ASCII-menu interface where one can change different stuff, 
save it, load previously saved stuff from a file etc).

> It is quite likely that the older version on VMS doesn't have the same
> font substutution support. Removing the "R" at the end of font names
> would likely help.

That might be enough, at least for now.  As I said, I'm not sure how 
"good" the PostScript is, especially in relation to newer font schemes.  
I could change the code and recompile, but that would take a while 
(considering that the code wasn't written by me).