Maybe there should be two efforts:
(1) Sending text to a line printer.
(2) Rendering postscript.
I'm not a VM hacker, but shouldn't we also have a third:
(3) Execute a Squeak VM on the printer. After all, if the laser printer can handle one VM (postscript), in these days of cheap memory, how bad would a second VM be?
-- Mike Klein
P.S. I know this is an extremely non-trivial thing, but I thought I would throw it out there as the "Squeak" way.
P.P.S. Following up on the Thread-safe filesystem thread, shouldn't we also have a Squeak-based file system (layered on a BlockDevice interface)? Nah... Files are 50's technology... I'll wait for a Squeak Object DB.
What I *really* want people to be aware of is how pervasive the influence of the platform that supports the Smalltalk VM is. Especially in the case of input & output.
Back in the (not so) old days, the quitPrimitive had a comment akin to:
"Exit from the VM to the host OS, if there is one"
These days, the "if there is one" has been taken out. I suppose one of the Squeak Manifesto directives should be to put this comment back in.
So, is the process of translating/porting host-OS services to Squeak/Smalltalk considered a pink or blue direction? Or some other color?
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