The Computer History Museum (CHM) has announced the public release and long-term preservation of Adobe”™s PostScript source code as part of its Art of Code series.
Launched in 1984, PostScript was Adobe”™s first product. It became an essential ingredient in the desktop publishing industry, accelerating computing”™s transformation of printing and driving Adobe”™s growth as a renowned software company. PostScript technology led to the creation of the flagship digital document format, PDF, in the 1990s, and is the worldwide standard printers rely on to this day. Further fueling much of its momentum, PostScript contributed to the development of digital typefaces and the fonts that comprise them.
“The story of PostScript has many different facets. It is a story about profound changes in human literacy as well as a story of trade secrets within source code,” said David C. Brock, director of curatorial affairs of the Mountain View, California-based Computer History Museum. “It is a story about the importance of teams, and of geometry. And it is a story of the motivations and educations of engineer-entrepreneurs. The Computer History Museum is excited to publicly release, for the first time, the source code for the breakthrough printing technology, PostScript. We thank Adobe, Inc. for their permission and support and John Warnock for championing this release.”
