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From:	turnbull AT gol1 DOT gol DOT com (Stephen J. Turnbull)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	DJGPP and Ghostscript
Date:	12 Oct 1995 12:48:01 +0900
Organization:	Global OnLine Japan
Lines:	69
Nntp-Posting-Host:	gol1.gol.com
Summary:	Ghostscript for DJGPP; ALPHA quality GRX driver available
To:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Dj-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

I noticed a few queries about Ghostscript and DJGPP a while back.  I have 
been a beta tester for GS in the DESQview/X environment for some time, 
using DJGPP v1.x as the platform.  I rarely work out of that environment, 
but I also thought it would be cool to have a version of Ghostscript that 
was fully compiled with DJGPP and didn't require DV/X.

So I hacked together a driver using LIBGRX.  Once I'm reasonably sure that
the code runs in more environments than just the one I'm currently using,
I'll contribute it to Ghostscript.  However, this requires coordinating
makefiles and docs and stuff, so it takes a bit of time.  I'm looking for 
ALPHA testers for this driver.  The current status of the project is

* Ghostscript (recent beta) and the driver both build without errors under
  both v1.12.maint4 and v2.0 beta 3
* GS + LIBGRX driver runs the test suite I have available as expected 
  under v1.12.maint4 on an IBM StinkPad 330cs; I haven't checked 
  carefully for fine points such as mitering and fencepost errors, but I 
  think there aren't any
* Under v2.0 beta 3, GS crashes and burns due to the SIGNOFP problem.  I 
  have no reason to believe that a machine with an FPU won't run fine, 
  but I don't feel like taking my Linux Web server out of commission to 
  test this ;-)
* Performance seems OK (faster than the X driver under DESQview/X), but
  I'm looking at possible enhancements for bitblt operations.  These
  haven't been implemented yet in LIBGRX 2.0  beta (AFAIK), so I haven't 
  put these in.  Advice on the algorithms used would be very welcome.  
  They're not that difficult, but this is the first graphics programming
  I've done.
* Ghostscript messages bleed through to the screen, but not as text, just 
  blobs.  I've thought about a couple ways to deal with this, but 
  suggestions are welcome.

Thanks to Peter for Ghostscript, DJ for DJGPP, Csaba Biegl for LIBGRX, 
and Sigfrid Lundberg and Erik Tavola for their VGAlib driver, which I 
borrowed a fair amount from.

I will provide source for the driver, makefile diffs, and a full makefile
on my server in

ftp://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/pub/djgpp/ALPHA/gsgrxdvr.zip

and I should upload to delorie.com too, but my site is of course primary.
You need to get the rest of the sources for Ghostscript from either a GNU 
mirror (for version 2.6.1, which is the current GNU release) or from

ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gnu/

(you'll have to figure out exactly what you need).  Or you can get the 
more recent and more capable Aladdin version (with a somewhat more 
restrictive license, see the file PUBLIC in the following directory) from

ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/

The files you need (I think) are gs351sr?.zip (the sources; gs351sr3 is
needed only if you want to read and write JPEGs), gs351fn?.zip are fonts,
which you will need if you don't have other fonts (recommended if you have
pre-3.0 fonts), but Ghostscript handles Adobe fonts fine.  You may also
need gs351ini.zip.  Check the gs351sr?.zip files for a bunch of files that
look like "gs*.ps"; if you have them, you don't need the gs351ini.zip
file.   (I believe this is provided for people who just scarf the binaries.)

-- 
Stephen Turnbull
Yaseppochi-Gumi
http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/yaseppochi-gumi.html

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