[comp.text] answer to SliTeX question

beth@stripe.ACA.MCC.COM (Beth Paxton) (06/15/89)

I received a response to my SliTeX question from Ken at the University of
Rochester in NY.  Thanks, Ken.

Below you will find the question and the answer (that works!):

QUESTION:

This has probably appeared on the net many times before, but being fairly
new to news, I haven't seen it.  I am looking for a copy of slitex that
will compile and run on a Sun3 running SunOS3.5. 

In a tex82 directory on our system, I have a directory called LaTeXslitex and
it contains the following files:
Sfontlist.txt, sfonts.tex, slides.{doc,sty,tex}, slitex.tex, splain.tex.

This has not been compiled (run through TeX).  I do the following and
get an 'EMT trap(core dumped)' error.  Perhaps you could tell me what
I am doing wrong or tell me where I can get a 'clean' copy of SliTeX:

Steps performed:

1. initex
   ** splain \dump

      (some fonts are not found, but a splain.fmt is created.  The
      version of TeX used is 2.0, LaTeX version 2.09)

2.  cp splain.fmt /usr/lib/tex/macros/splain.fmt

3.  virtex
    ** &splain \read 0 to\blort

      (this brings up SliTex version 2.09 and the \blort prompt)
    \blort=^\

    *^\

      (this dumps core, as I would expect -- now I need to undump core
      so that it is in a usable form -- now the trouble begins)

4.  undump slitex virtex core

      (get the EMT trap (core dumped) error)



ANSWER:

The undump you have may not be correct for the Sun you use. In any
case, undumping is not in favour these days. Just make a shell script
called slitex that says:

#!/bin/sh
virtex '&splain' "$@"

You'll find you lose little or no speed.

Don't forget to install slides.{sty,tex} in the macros directory.
Pay attention to the bits in the LaTeX book about using a root
file when making slides.