[comp.text] Metafont vs SunOS

ellis@chips.sri.com (Michael Ellis) (08/04/89)

    Is it hopeless to try to compile a usable version of METAFONT
    running under SunOS 4.0.3? We have Sun4's and Sun3's, and the SunOS
    PASCAL compiler on our Sun3'S

    After struggling a bit with the METAFONT 84 sources, it seems as though
    I may have to write a fair number of functions to simulate I/O
    primitives not provided in the SunOS I/O runtime library that METAFONT
    expects (break, breakin, erstat, close) in addition to writing
    sed-scripts replacing certain PASCAL keywords (others:) with SunOS
    PASCAL keywords (otherwise).

    Incompatibilities at such a gross level leave me wondering whether
    I am embarking on a doomed effort. Has anyone else ever been here
    before? Can METAFONT be made to run under SunOS 4.0.3? How?

-michael

grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu (Dirk Grunwald) (08/04/89)

yes, it's easy to make metafont run under SunOs; just hang up the Pascal
and use the Web2C package. You can FTP the source from june.cs.washington.edu.

Works very well. Also produces TeX and Bibtex. Works with all C compilers
I've tried.

ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) (08/04/89)

|    Is it hopeless to try to compile a usable version of METAFONT
|    running under SunOS 4.0.3? We have Sun4's and Sun3's, and the SunOS
|    PASCAL compiler on our Sun3'S

Why futz with the MF in Pascal version? Get the Web2c version from
a recent distribution.