PHR00JG@TECHNION ("Jacques J. Goldberg") (01/01/91)
Ben Wildasin asked for it. Ben, I am addicted to TeX and no less to CP/M. But TeX under CP/M, I wouldn't try to turn the dream into reality. TeX was originally written in WEB, with the WEB interpreter (TANGLE) producing PASCAL source code. The TeX program relies on enumerated variables in the range 0..32767? Do you know a CP/M compiler handling that? A converter WEB-to-C was then developped, that makes porting much easier. Today you can get the source for TeX in C. All implementations known to me under MSDOS starting from the C code use an internal virtual memory management because the 640k addressing space is not large enough. Even if such a management would be ported to CP/M, I do not see how the memory swapping and overlayed code and work areas could be packed in 60k of memory left on a banked system. It could be a challenge, but not something practical. DVI drivers, you ask. One could think of TeXing the document on some other machine, downloading the intermediary DVI file to a CP/M machine, and using the CP/M system to display the output. A Previewer is probably feasible under CP/M as what you need is a bit map of the screen (in some graphics mode, not all CP/M system has such a feature). And to print, but probably you would want to print on a cheap Epson-like device: there again memory bitmaps are required, and with the much higher resolution again the driver will essentially exercise the hard disk, and the user will be frustrated. It already takes FIVE MINUTES if not more to print one page of TeX output on an Epson printer with a 10 MHz 8086 processor!!!! I know only one reasonable way to TeXing under CP/M. Purchase one of those cheap PC-clones, with 640k RAM and at least 20 Mb hard disk, and a graphics card, and declare it to yourself and friends as a co-processor to the CP/M machine. As a SLAVE, the idea of keeping a PC is perhaps tolerable.... If however you NEED TeX the right machine to purchase is OF COURSE not the PC junk. What you want is an AMIGA. TeX on an Amiga outperforms just about anything existing except powerful workstations. Speed is not the main issue. With the Amiga you see the output and the input on the same screen side by side, without printing, and the turnaround to prepare a document is minimized. Too bad, it ain't CP/M.... Jacques
ken@csis.dit.csiro.au (Ken Yap) (01/02/91)
>Ben Wildasin asked for it. > >Ben, I am addicted to TeX and no less to CP/M. >But TeX under CP/M, I wouldn't try to turn the dream into reality. I second that. Don't even think of it. I just finished a tangle (sorry for pun) with getting TeX running on a Tandy 6000 (68k based Xenix machine) with 1 M memory and tens of Mb of disk. My major problems: Needed flexnames cpp (got free version). Needed long identifiers (used shortc and cpp). Bug in compiler for large multi-d arrays. And the sheer amount of time needed to compile and test. I would say the minimum configuration that will support TeX comfortably is 1 M memory, 20 Mb disk, flexnames C compiler with 32 integer type. Below this you'll need ugly tricks. So go buy yourself a cheap PC clone instead. Oh, if there are any t6k readers, I'll announce the diffs in the Tandy newsgroup soon.