4 ms·

Kind of random, but you made me think of it. I always wanted to do an entire site in PDF, with all the links opening other pdfs on the same server. That or post

Kind of random, but you made me think of it. I always wanted to do an entire site in PDF, with all the links opening other pdfs on the same server. That or postscript...

Cieplak 11y ago
Funny you bring that up, I was just reading about this: When Steve Jobs left Apple and started NeXT, he pitched Adobe on the idea of using PS as the display system for his new workstation computers. The result was Display PostScript, or DPS. DPS added basic functionality to improve performance by changing many string lookups into 32 bit integers, adding support for direct output with every command, and adding functions to allow the GUI to inspect the diagram. Additionally, a set of "bindings" was provided to allow PS code to be called directly from the C programming language. NeXT used these bindings in their NeXTStep system to provide an object oriented graphics system. Although DPS was written in conjunction with NeXT, Adobe sold it commercially and it was a common feature of most Unix workstations in the 1990s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History
- ricksplat 11y ago
  I remember some fuss being made about this in the early days of OS X, about "looking glass" (the gui system) using display postscript. Anybody know anything about that? If it's still a part of OS X or if it fell by the way side?
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    OSX was alleged (by Apple, even) to use PDF as the display language, but Quartz just has an object model that maps very nicely to PDF, making PDF transformations and export very easy.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  There is something interesting (if you can say "interesting" to the idea of writing, say, an e-mail client in PostScript): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS
theoh 11y ago
NeWS was an interesting experiment in this direction. It seems quite odd that old VT terminal hardware is still in use, while it would be almost impossible to resurrect something like NeWS. A case of complexity I guess, but also the worrying volatility of storage media.
- yourapostasy 11y ago
  I suspect VT-standards-related hardware (and software emulators) survives because the protocol can be implemented without fear of getting dragged into court for licensing fees. Whereas if you wanted to implement NeWS (or Display Postscript) even today, you still have to license it. There is an informal mention that NeWS had too many third-party components to ever open source. [1] [1] https://github.com/IanDarwin/OpenLookCDROM https://github.com/IanDarwin/OpenLookCDROM
noobermin 11y ago
Could you not do a similar thing with html and css sans js?
paulmd 11y ago
This reminds me of Terry Davis' TempleOS, which features an ubiquitous hyperdocument system. http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/ http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-temp... Terry himself is schizophrenic but it's a fascinating piece of outsider art in many respects. He's even posted on HN under several accounts, but he's aggressive and disruptive and inevitably ends up banned.
- TerryADavis 11y ago
  I am a professional operating system developer. In 1990, I was hired to work on Ticketmaster's VAX operating system.
  - paulmd 11y ago
    Hi Terry! Sorry, didn't know you had a new account. I read some of your post history - can you explain how what you were doing with Ticketmaster was systems programming? It sounds like what would now be considered application programming, but I have no idea how intensive your work was at the time. High-performance code can often cross the line. TempleOS is simply fascinating. I'm sure you know that I can't agree on the 'divine' part but it's certainly a fascinating OS. Writing an OS is a tough task by any means, let alone a reasonably fast one with a novel presentation. That's a lot of work, even for a productive OS programmer. Have you taken a look at MenuetOS, Plan9, Oberon, or other non-traditional OSs? I'm curious what you have to think of their own unique features. I applaud your goal of taking it back to basics. I think you're largely right about the number of abstractions between you and the hardware. Really really fast code needs to be written close to the metal.
    - TerryADavis 11y ago
      I worked on the code that installed language modules into kernel space. I wrote a check-disk utility. I did a file compression archive. There were serial port drivers and I made a command to reset a stuck port. I worked in VAX assembly language. I did firmware for a bar code reader networking device with keypad and display. I worked on image processing for an actual bar code reader itself. I worked there 1990-1996. About half was user space. The other half was kernel or firmware on bare metal. ----- Pat and I started at the same time. He was in school with me, in fact in my differential equations class. He dropped out of school. I stayed in and got my master's in electrical engineering while working part time at Ticketmaster. I graduated with master's in 1994 and stayed with Ticketmaster for a year. I returned to Ticketmaster for 3 weeks in 2002. Pat was a boss.
smoser 11y ago
What about markdown files and relative links? Works on Github and MacDown. https://github.com/blog/1395-relative-links-in-markup-files https://github.com/blog/1395-relative-links-in-markup-files
klodolph 11y ago
I've played video games that were distributed as PDFs. You can actually do a lot inside a PDF.
fit2rule 11y ago
See Chapter Nine: https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/pocorgtfo11.pdf https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/pocorgtfo11.pdf

Kind of random, but you made me think of it. I always wanted to do an entire site in PDF, with all the links opening other pdfs on the same server. That or postscript...

Cieplak 11y ago

Funny you bring that up, I was just reading about this: When Steve Jobs left Apple and started NeXT, he pitched Adobe on the idea of using PS as the display system for his new workstation computers. The result was Display PostScript, or DPS. DPS added basic functionality to improve performance by changing many string lookups into 32 bit integers, adding support for direct output with every command, and adding functions to allow the GUI to inspect the diagram. Additionally, a set of "bindings" was provided to allow PS code to be called directly from the C programming language. NeXT used these bindings in their NeXTStep system to provide an object oriented graphics system. Although DPS was written in conjunction with NeXT, Adobe sold it commercially and it was a common feature of most Unix workstations in the 1990s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History

ricksplat 11y ago
I remember some fuss being made about this in the early days of OS X, about "looking glass" (the gui system) using display postscript. Anybody know anything about that? If it's still a part of OS X or if it fell by the way side?
- grkvlt 11y ago
  OSX was alleged (by Apple, even) to use PDF as the display language, but Quartz just has an object model that maps very nicely to PDF, making PDF transformations and export very easy.
rbanffy 11y ago
There is something interesting (if you can say "interesting" to the idea of writing, say, an e-mail client in PostScript): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS

theoh 11y ago

NeWS was an interesting experiment in this direction. It seems quite odd that old VT terminal hardware is still in use, while it would be almost impossible to resurrect something like NeWS. A case of complexity I guess, but also the worrying volatility of storage media.

yourapostasy 11y ago
I suspect VT-standards-related hardware (and software emulators) survives because the protocol can be implemented without fear of getting dragged into court for licensing fees. Whereas if you wanted to implement NeWS (or Display Postscript) even today, you still have to license it. There is an informal mention that NeWS had too many third-party components to ever open source. [1] [1] https://github.com/IanDarwin/OpenLookCDROM https://github.com/IanDarwin/OpenLookCDROM

noobermin 11y ago

Could you not do a similar thing with html and css sans js?

paulmd 11y ago

This reminds me of Terry Davis' TempleOS, which features an ubiquitous hyperdocument system. http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/ http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-temp... Terry himself is schizophrenic but it's a fascinating piece of outsider art in many respects. He's even posted on HN under several accounts, but he's aggressive and disruptive and inevitably ends up banned.

TerryADavis 11y ago
I am a professional operating system developer. In 1990, I was hired to work on Ticketmaster's VAX operating system.
- paulmd 11y ago
  Hi Terry! Sorry, didn't know you had a new account. I read some of your post history - can you explain how what you were doing with Ticketmaster was systems programming? It sounds like what would now be considered application programming, but I have no idea how intensive your work was at the time. High-performance code can often cross the line. TempleOS is simply fascinating. I'm sure you know that I can't agree on the 'divine' part but it's certainly a fascinating OS. Writing an OS is a tough task by any means, let alone a reasonably fast one with a novel presentation. That's a lot of work, even for a productive OS programmer. Have you taken a look at MenuetOS, Plan9, Oberon, or other non-traditional OSs? I'm curious what you have to think of their own unique features. I applaud your goal of taking it back to basics. I think you're largely right about the number of abstractions between you and the hardware. Really really fast code needs to be written close to the metal.
  - TerryADavis 11y ago
    I worked on the code that installed language modules into kernel space. I wrote a check-disk utility. I did a file compression archive. There were serial port drivers and I made a command to reset a stuck port. I worked in VAX assembly language. I did firmware for a bar code reader networking device with keypad and display. I worked on image processing for an actual bar code reader itself. I worked there 1990-1996. About half was user space. The other half was kernel or firmware on bare metal. ----- Pat and I started at the same time. He was in school with me, in fact in my differential equations class. He dropped out of school. I stayed in and got my master's in electrical engineering while working part time at Ticketmaster. I graduated with master's in 1994 and stayed with Ticketmaster for a year. I returned to Ticketmaster for 3 weeks in 2002. Pat was a boss.

smoser 11y ago

What about markdown files and relative links? Works on Github and MacDown. https://github.com/blog/1395-relative-links-in-markup-files https://github.com/blog/1395-relative-links-in-markup-files

klodolph 11y ago

I've played video games that were distributed as PDFs. You can actually do a lot inside a PDF.

fit2rule 11y ago

See Chapter Nine: https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/pocorgtfo11.pdf https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/pocorgtfo11.pdf