jwg@duke.UUCP (Jeffrey William Gillette) (12/02/85)
[] In preparation for an upgrade of the Duke Language Toolkit, I have heard some references to "Metafont" which is reported to be a way to describe fonts independent of raster or bit patterns. Such an approach would ease the process of producing fonts for widely divergent devices (especially those that do not support graphics standards like GKS or VDI). So what is "Metafont"? Is it a commercial product or an algorithm? And where can I find a printed description of this approach to fonts (a definition or tutorial would be execllent). Pleasesend mail. Jeffrey William Gillette uucp: duke!ecsvax!duccpc!coloe!jeff The Divinity School Duke University -- SUPERCHICKEN
bothner@Navajo.ARPA (12/06/85)
Metafont is a program written by Donald Knuth (of "Art of Computer
Programming" and TeX fame). It is a programming language tuned to
describing black-and-write graphical objects in terms of equations
and curves, and specifically tuned for a portable definition of a
font family (hence the meta-) where the individual fonts can be generated
in terms of specific parameters like resolution, slope, boldness etc.
Metafont is a program which (like TeX) is effectively in the public
domain. The standard TeX fonts (the Computer Modern family) (written
in Metafont) have just been finished. The new, portable version of
Metafont is almost stable, and "The Metafont-book" is I think done
(or close to it) (it will be published by Addison-Wesley).
I do not have ordering information, but you could contact David Fuchs
(DRF@su-sail.arpa or ...!{ucbvax,decvax}!glacier!navajo!fuchs, or
David Fuchs, Computer Science Dept, Stanford University CA 94305).
Expect to pay about on the order of $200 for a tape full of source files.
--Per Bothner
ARPA: Bothner@su-score UUCP: ...{ucbvax,decvax}!glacier!navajo!bothner