laser-lovers@uw-beaver (08/15/85)
From: Robert Morris <ram%umass-boston.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa> [[Editor's note: This message arises from a discussion in the unix-tex list about the use of "maxdrift" in a DVI printing program. Robert Morris suggests here that the topic may be of general interest and suggests that it be continued on laser-lovers. Please note that what he is asking for is *not* more discussion on maxdrift but instead for a more general discussion of the problem, in general. I have removed unix-tex from the list of recipients since I think that this general discussion will be of interest to laser-lovers, but not necessarily to unix-tex (which is not a moderated list). --Rick]] If this is more than control of accumulated roundoff, could we see a moderated discussion on laser-lovers of what this is all about for those of us not steeped in dvi? I assume it may apply to lots of things driving lots of engines. For example,I recently learned that although American typesetter vendors provide software abroad which purports to drive their engines metrically, there is a wide variety of quality in treatment of roundoff. Presumably a similar problem exists for engines natively metric? One anecdote described driving software which had to stoop to keeping a list of the ``true'' placement of all lines on the page and attempt, in the face of moves to a certain position, to ascertain whether what was really desired was alignment to a particular line and effect that instead.