AW: Re: EOF characters in XyWrite files

[flash@xxxxxxxx]

"Bottom line is: what is in the file is almost unrelated to what goes to the printer. I say 'almost' instead of 'completely' only because for any given printer driver there is a predictable transformation from the file content to the binary byte stream sent to the printer."

'Predictable transformation' is the operative verb here. Obviously ABCDEF is not what flies over the
wire, whether to a printer or a network or the loud speaker of a stereo. What flies over the wire is
electricity, ones and zeros having been encoded into voltages. This is similar in principle to the
relationship between a piece of music and what is encoded onto magnetic tape or a CD-ROM: there is a
transform algorithm which is predictable.

Trouble arises when proprietary algorithms and open standards algorithms are mixed in the same
system (or on opposite ends of a wire). Whether a music system, a printer, or a network makes little
difference, the results are much the same: either one system can't read the format at all and
generates a read error (for example, some CD/DVD players have trouble reading some copy-protected
discs), or the system parses the format only partially and generates unpredictable results (which
may be partially intelligble, or more or less distorted by 'noise' or transform puns). This is what
is happening when a printer prints out something, but not what you expect; it is applying the wrong
transform rule, or an incompletely compatible tranform rule, to the input.

"Note that the binary steam that goes to the printer can contain byte number 26 (which is
sometimes interpreted as an end of file marker) - that is perfectly legal and may even be demanded
as part of the print control syntax." Obviously, any given character can mean one thing to one
system (e.g., EOF in Xy) and something else (or nothing) to another (such as a printer).

I have the greatest respect for those who tirelessly tweak import and export filters and PRN files
and so on to keep Xy communicating with the rest of the IT world: rtf, pdf, postscript, and so on.
It makes me appreciate again and again the power of Xy, and the limited usefulness of such
pplications as MS-Word. Too many people have been hornswoggled by the MS-Oriface GUI-styling alone
and not grasped that what's under the hood is what matters.

Sorry if I have wandered OT. Nuf waffle.