From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
	autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,6071f84396b8f5aa
X-Google-NewGroupId: yes
X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Received: by 10.68.25.168 with SMTP id d8mr101561pbg.4.1318890213286;
        Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:23:33 -0700 (PDT)
Path: 
 d5ni23791pbc.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!feeder.erje.net!news-1.dfn.de!news.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Writing PDF files
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:23:31 +0100
Message-ID: <CAC26973.FF66%yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>
References: <CAC12F97.FDDC%yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>
 <j7i8he$vm8$1@munin.nbi.dk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Trace: individual.net Ahzjx4UJ9qejOl8TIjvo+Av51jXXiiU70xXlA82ZC0/dRZq8p2
Cancel-Lock: sha1:bI8t2wSe06YDwNSaMi9mo212qZA=
User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/12.28.0.101117
Thread-Topic: Writing PDF files
Thread-Index: AcyNG2Z8QDW1Qw6WFEGKu0sGzTVJiQ==
Xref: news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:14014
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: 2011-10-17T23:23:31+01:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Thanks to everyone who has offered help with this.

KDF9 is a historic British computer from 50 years ago:

   <http://www.findlayw.plus.com/KDF9>

I have written a KDF9 emulator in Ada 2005 that runs on MacOS X, Linux and
Windows, and am now hoping to complete the set of KDF9 I/O devices it
supports.  At option a Calcomp graph plotter could be fitted in place of a
tape punch.  It interpreted 6-bit commands that directed it to move one step
left/right and/or back/forward, with the pen raised or lowered.  That's it.

All I need is the ability to create a line drawing specified by a series of
such commands, so very basic vector drawing.  It would be good if users
could see the plot immediately on completion, just by opening the plot file.

PDF would seem to offer this convenience.  Thanks for the pointers to other
formats that might do the job.  I'm not going to plunge into powerful
graphics frameworks, partly to preserve portability and ease of building,
and partly because life is too short; but some of the other suggestions
might meet my needs.  Time to put my thinking cap on!

Thanks again.

-- 
Bill Findlay
with blueyonder.co.uk;
use  surname & forename;