dww@stl.UUCP (David Wright) (10/10/85)
In article <28@btnix.UUCP> titley@btnix.UUCP (Nigel Titley) writes: >Your problem is probably that you are printing the .LN3 file without >specifying /NOFEED in the print command. This has the effect of inserting ><FF> when VMS thinks that the end of a page is near. Also you will >need to set up the device as PASTHRU. You need to buy at least one >and preferably two RAM cartridges if you want to set anything fancy. He Was Right about /NOFEED. We have the RAM pod, it is needed even without TeX. We set SIXEL_GRAPHICS which seems to work as well as PASSTHRU. I can now recommend TeX on VMS with LN03! There have been a few enquiries on the new about where to get TeX from. I expect most people know, but as clearly some don't here's the very useful answer I got when I asked that question some time ago: From: dec-coors!prohaska (Sohail Aslam) TeX82 (the most recent version of TeX from Stanford), a number of other TeX related stuff e.g., LaTeX, AMSTeX etc., and drivers for LN03 and Versatec printer plotters are available from Stanford. LaTeX is set of TeX macros that provide a slightly more convenient set of commands to typeset documents. All of this can be obtained on VMS backup format tape. The cost of the tape is $82.00. You can get it from Maria Code DP Services 1371 Sydney Dr., Sunnyvale CA 94087 (408) 735-8006 There is special order form and some related information that you may wish to get from Maria before ordering anything. You also get METAFONT, the program to create new fonts on the VMS tape. TeX works with device-independent descriptions of different fonts. The actual pixel-coded data for each font is placed on PXL files. LN03 is a 300 dots/inch device; you can (and should) get another tape from Maria that has about 324 font files. Each file contains the pixel-code for all the characters belonging to a particular font. On the first tape, there is a directory called VERSPL that contains the Versatec stuff. In it there is program named READFONTS that can be used to read the PXL files off of this second font tape. The font tape that we got was created on a DEC-20; READFONTS is setup exactly to read such DEC-20 tapes. Versatec printer/plotters are 200 dots/inch devices (I think). The program FFC under the LN03 directory on the tape can then be used to convert the PXL files to LN03 format. The latter are the ones which LN03 driver uses to print TeX output. The cost of font tape is $62.00. TeX is truely a remarkable typesetting program. The entire VMS 4 documentation set was typeset by DEC using TeX. Apart from ordering the tape, you will need the "The TeX Book" by Knuth, and the LaTeX manual. Both can be ordered from Maria or Addison-Wesley. You MUST have the The TeX Book to learn how TeX works and how to use it.