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To: chad@anasazi.com
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From: dkelly@hiwaay.net
Subject: Re: a2ps port/package 
In-reply-to: Message from chad@anasazi.com (Chad R. Larson) 
   of "Tue, 04 Mar 1997 20:48:59 MST." <9703050349.AA29120@chad.anasazi.com>
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Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 22:10:12 -0600
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Chad R. Larson writes:
>
> I downloaded the a2ps package in the 2.1.7 tree and found that it would
> only print to standard out.  This isn't the way I've grown used to it
> behaving, so I pulled the package and rebuilt it.  Same behavior.

Actually, I like it the way it is, it retains the "tool" nature of Unix 
where one builds on other tools to arrive at the goal. If one throws ASCII 
at a printer then it should know how to convert to PS if needed. If one 
throws PS at a printer it should know what to do with that. When I first 
read the a2ps docs my first thought was to find a way to defeat the 
automatic pipe to lpr. But then I found the FreeBSD port already didn't 
pipe to the printer and was happy. Meanwhile I've found the FreeBSD patched 
port compiles perfectly on Sun and SGI systems... :-)

I like the requirement that one explicitly do something extra to get output 
to the printer rather than an automatic action. Recently a "man -t 
something" on a Solaris system really bugged me because output went 
directly to the printer. Never did figure out how to intercept the output. 
I was bugged because the printer couldn't handle Postscript. Yet. I was 
looking to generate a Postscript file to play with Ghostscript.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.