matt@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern) (08/11/88)
Thanks to all who responded to my request for information on public-domain TeX for the IBM PC. Here's what I've learned: (1) This topic is often discussed on comp.text. It's probably a better newsgroup than this one. Sorry. (2) On ucbvax (available through anonymous ftp) is the source for Common TeX, written in C. I've glanced at the source; it doesn't appear to be ported to the PC environment, so compiling it may require some fiddling. Guess this is my chance to see if the Microsoft C standard library is *really* the standard library. I was told by phr@WEB.berkeley.edu that Common TeX will run on the AT but not on the XT; I don't understand what the reason for that might be (memory segmentation problems, maybe?), but I'll see if I can hack things anyway. (3) The full TeX distribution (20M compressed!) is available from score.stanford.edu. Individual pieces (in particular, the source in web format) are available from labrea.stanford.edu. To convert the web programs to "standard" Pascal, use the utilities tangle and weave; these are available from simtel20.arpa. (pd1:<msdos.tex) Again, anonymous logins. (4) Frederick Hermann (fritz@caf.mit.edu) reports that if you're at MIT, MicroTeX is available for very steep discounts. (Why didn't I learn this before I graduated? Sigh.) (5) Finally, Jon Radel (jonradel@icecream.princeton.edu) has volunteered to be a clearinghouse for MS-DOS TeX material. He will mail floppies with various things on them for copying costs. If you want a list of what he has, send a self-addressed #10 envelope with $0.45 postage to Jon Radel P.O. Box 2276 Reston, VA 22090. Thanks again to all who responded! -- +===================+=====================+================================+ | Matthew Austern | 366 Le Conte Hall | matt@violet.berkeley.edu | | | U.C.B., 94720 | matt@cosmic.berkeley.edu | +===================+=====================+================================+