On Wed 24 Dec, Chris Eddy <ceddy@NB.NET> wrote:

> [...] One would have to
> further assume that most of the participants in our Piclist are running
> their Email software under windows with a fairly recent version of Netscape
> or from that other company can display the content.  Ahh, I just can't
> remember the name of that other company that makes the other popular browser
> right now.  Nevertheless, if a consensus were reached, one could endevour to
> do HMTL schematics.

I'd say that Postscript is more likely to be useful for schematics than
HTML, since the latter doesn't include any commands for line drawing.
PS (when written by hand) can be very compact and is very portable
accross systems (I doubt that there is anyone on the list who can't run
Ghostscript and also doesn't have access to a PS printer).

And BobBuege <BobBuege@AOL.COM> wrote:

> When I want to send a schematic, I use paintbrush to draw the schematic in BMP
> format and just attach the file to an email. Paintbrush came free with Windows
> for Workgroups 3.11. I assume something similar comes with Windows 3.1 or
> Windows 95. It sure makes the schematic easier to read.

Do *not* use BMP files unless you really want to be chargrilled by the
other list members.  BMP files (in the best mickeysoft tradition) are a
MS peculiarity with NO COMPRESSION in the files.  This means that the files
get extremely large (10-20x bigger than GIFs, 100's x bigger than PS) and
that everyone reading the digest will see hundreds of lines like this:

///////////////a/////////////////////////A/////////////////////
//////////c///////////////////////f///////////////P////////////
/////A/////////////////////////////////////////////////M///////
///////////////////////G/////////////////////////Y/////////////
/////////////////////////////////////Z/////////////////////////

If you want to know how people react, look in sci.electronics.design,
where a student from Singapore posted a 500+KB PDF file with the
schematics for his assignment project (and the text "please point
out any errors please").

My suggestion for distributing schematics is to use ASCII whenever
possible, and maybe *small* PS or GIFs for slightly larger ones.
Large files (i.e. over 10k or maybe even less) should be put up
on an FTP or web site and only a pointer put on the list.

Frank
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Frank A. Vorstenbosch                           Phone:  +44-181-636 3391
Electronics & Software Engineer                    or:  +44-181-636 3000
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