hans@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Hans Huttel) (08/28/89)
Some time ago (article <89@castle.ed.ac.uk>) I asked for information
on the availability of Emacs and TeX/LaTeX for the IBM PC. Below is a
summary of the replies I got.
Note that some of the replies are aimed at UK netters (which should
not surprise you, given that this is posted from the UK).
--------------- From: Russ Nelson <nelson@edu.clarkson.soe.sun> --------------
Freemacs is a programmable editor. The .EXE file is only 21K because
it only contains a language interpreter and text editor primitives. The
bulk of the programming is done in MINT, which is a string-oriented
language. Freemacs is yet another Emacs clone. Emacs was first written
at MIT by Richard M. Stallman.
There are a number of Emacs clones for the PC available. Freemacs
has two distinguishing characteristics:
o Freemacs is the only freely copyable programmable editor. Epsilon and Brief
are examples of commercial programmable editors. (MicroEmacs has a macro
language, but that doesn't mean I think it's programmable).
o Freemacs is the only IBM-PC editor that tries to be like GNU Emacs.
You may freely copy this software. I only ask that you send improvements
back to me for incorporation into the package for the rest of us. The
distribution is available from one or more of the following sources:
EMACS15E ARC The executables and MINT code.
EMACS100 ARC Zenith Z-100 version. Requires EMACS15E.
EMACSPEL ARC Spelling checker.
EMACSEGA ARC A collection of EGA utilities
EMAC15ES ARC The .ASM source.
CUHUG BBS:
(315)268-6667 - 1200/2400 8N1, 24 hrs. File area 25. No registration
required to download Freemacs.
Internet:
Anonymous FTP to simtel20.army.mil from PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>
Internet:
Anonymous FTP to grape.ecs.clarkson.edu [128.153.13.196] from
/e/freemacs
Bitnet && UUCP:
Send mail to archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu. You may use
archive-server%sun.soe.clarkson.edu@omnigate if you are on Bitnet, or
uunet!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!archive-server if you are using UUCP. The
mail message should consist of 'help' if you want to learn how to use
the archive server, or else if you just want to get Freemacs, then send
the following lines as a separate mail message. If you have an unusual
return address (i.e. not Bitnet, nor Internet, nor known to uunet), use
the 'path' command to give a path relative to one of the above nets.
send freemacs emacs15e.aa
send freemacs emacs15e.ab
send freemacs emacs15e.ac
send freemacs emacs15e.ad
send freemacs emacs15e.ae
send freemacs emacs15e.af
The files that you will get back should be concatenated together, run
through uudecode, and thence through an unARCer such as arc or pkxarc.
Or else send $15 (copying fee) to the author. This will assure you of the
latest version. Please specify floppy format:
5.25", 1.2 Meg
5.25", 360K
3.50", 720K
Russell Nelson
11 Grant St.
Potsdam, NY 13676
------------ From Sandeep Mehta <sxm@com.philips.philabs> ----------------
Read the article in the August issue on IEEE Computer which talks about
exactly the same thing. Its in the Product Reviews sections on Page 111.
--------------- From Hy Tran <tran@edu.stanford.portia> --------------------
Yes. TeX and LaTeX are available for the PC from commercial companies
(MicroTeX for the PC, among others), but your best bet, in my opinion,
is to snarf the public domain versions of PC TeX (free versus some $400
in the US; I haven't got any idea what the cost would be in the UK).
wsmr-simtel20.army.mil maintains archives (in the US) for lots of public
domain stuff; in the pd1:<msdos.tex> directory are two PD TeX versions,
including previewers, and info on where to get PD dvi drivers. There is
an overseas archiver similar to simtel20 (I think it's in the Netherlands,
but I don't remember the name of the machine. You might ask in comp.sys.
imb.pc) which would also have that (i.e. the PD TeX and such info).
Similarly, there are several versions of Emacs in the public domain and
some commercial editors which look like Emacs for the PC. The PD ones
that I'm familiar with are Microemacs and Freemacs. Freemacs looks like
a Gnuemacs clone; Microemacs started out looking somewhat like Gosling,
and now has (I think) Microspell, MicroScribe, and a whole bunch of macros
to take advantage of color capabilities.
--------------- From Ken Yap <ken@edu.rochester.cs> --------------------------
While I can provide you with some information, your best bet
for information about who can give you what is to mail to the
UKTeX mailing list at info-tex@uk.ac.aston and the members
of the list will be happy to help you acquire free PC software,
if they haven't already seen your note.
---------------- From James Zurlo <jz0t+@edu.cmu.andrew> --------------------
If you are interested in commercial software then my favorites are:
PCTeX for $249
from: Personal TeX Inc.
12 Madrona Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Tel. (415) 388-8853
They also sell previewers and dvi filters.
The best implementation of Emacs for the PC is Epsilon from Lugaru.
Personal TeX sells Epsilon for $159.
If you order direct from Lugaru, the price is $190 (I think).
Lugaru Software
5843 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
USA
Epsilon is one impresive piece of software. It eliminates most
of the limitations of DOS. You can edit unlimited file sizes, because
it swaps to disk or EMS. You can also run a compiler in one window
while editing another file in the other.
-------------- James Krause <krause@edu.uiuc.csrd.uicsrd> --------------------
You're not going to find the "real" EMACS on a PC running MS-DOS,
since it wants a LOT of memory; more than an old PC has. However, there are a
lot of "clones" that act similarly at the interface level (i.e. they have
similar default keyboard layouts, but are not programmable with the same
Emacs programming language). Some are commercial, some are freely available.
I have tried (and like) something called MicroEmacs, available via
anonymous ftp from simtel20.army.mil. It comes with source, but is not
_that_ close to the "real" EMACS overall.
As for TeX: There are a fair number of sources for that. Again,
simtel20.army.mil has 2 versions available. I do not know anything about
them, but I have heard that they work. I personally use "PCTeX", produced
by
Personal TeX, Inc.
12 Madrona
Mill Valley, CA 94941
415/388-8853
Telex 5106010672 PCTEX
They also have drivers available, but I wrote my own--but a friend of mine
uses their drivers and they seem to work well.
--------------------- From I.Sparry@bath.gdt -------------------------------
The version I have only allows 300k of memory for documents, fonts etc,
so it does run out of memory before a 'normal' one, but it is OK for
anything which does not have a lot of figures/tables which are floating.
For dvi to printer converters, I suggest that you send a mail message to
'info-server@uk.ac.ukc', and start investigating. They have an archive
which has a large number of these things. Initially a blank message or one
with the two lines
Request: Index
Topic: Index
should work.
Emacs is a different problem. The full 'GNU emacs' will never work on a PC.
However there are a number of 'micro-emacs' programs you can choose from.
The most common is 'uemacs', which should be available on lancs.pdsoft.
Log in as 'pdsoft', password 'pdsoft', or send a mail message to
'info-server@uk.ac.cam.cl'.
In any case you should examine lancs.pdsoft if you have any interest in PC's,
as they have a large amount of software which you can download. You should
ask a local expert for help in things like
Logging into remote machines across Janet
File transfer between machines connected to Janet
File transfer between Micros and you local mainframes
---------------- From Kimmo Suominen <kim@fi.lut.kannel> ---------------------
MicroEmacs is quite a useful tool on PC's. I like to use though it has some
different key-bindings to GNU Emacs.
I haven't heard of any PD implementations of TeX for PC. I would like to find
one, too. Some dvi-filters I have seen as PD.
When you summarize, would you PLEASE e-mail the summary to me, since I don't
follow comp.text (I picked up your article from comp.emacs).
---------------- From SG_CALLOW@OPEN.ACS.VAX --------------------------------
Both Emacs and TeX/LaTeX are available for the IBM & its pals.
Emacs (MicroEmacs) is available from the public domain software archive at
Lancster (source code included). TeX et al should be available for the IBM
from the Aston Tex archive. Both of these are also available comercially
ArborText have published most of their TeX system for the IBM but I am not
Sure who has commercial versions of emacs.
---------------------- From viggo@freja.dk -----------------------------------
The two main places to get emacs (in shape off freemacs or uemacs) and
PcTeX is simtel20.army.mil and science.utah.udu if you are able to ftp.
(Simtel20 also has a mailing service.)
The programmes are for most part free, but manuals often cost money.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK guys & gals, you have now reached the end of the summary!
Regards
Hans
| Hans H\"{u}ttel, Office 1603 JANET: hans@uk.ac.ed.lfcs
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