Furuta@Washington@sri-unix (10/20/82)
From: Richard Furuta <Furuta@Washington> Date: 17 Oct 1982 1528-PDT There's a Unix version of TeX that runs under BSD 4.1 on Vaxen. Understanding what people mean when they say "a version of TeX" requires some understanding of the history of TeX. There are three important versions: (1) Sail TeX which only runs on Dec 10's and 20's, (2) Pascal TeX (usually called PTeX) which implements basically the same language as does Sail TeX (which is usually the TeX one finds running on everything except Dec 10's and 20's), and (3) TeX82, the newest, and hopefully the final, version of TeX, compiled in Pascal, which is available in very experimental versions, mostly on Dec 10's and 20's. The TeX available on Berkeley Unix is a port of PTeX. We currently run all three. Our Unix PTeX is not completely bug free (some legitimate TeX inputs cause incorrect output or cause core dumps). However, since PTeX has been made obsolete by the introduction of TeX82, we don't expect that any bugs will be fixed. On the other hand, it might be a bit of time before TeX82 becomes available for Unix systems, due in part to the lossages caused by Berkeley Pascal. We are awaiting the outcome of experiments being contemplated at Stanford to convert TeX82 source from (a subset of) Pascal to C before deciding whether or not to work on bringing up TeX82 under Berkeley Pascal locally. What we run on our Unix, then is the port of PTeX (courtesy of Calvin Jackson of Cal Tech), a Versatec driver from Janet Incerpi of Brown University, and the latest set of fonts from Stanford. Additionally, we've got some more software from Calvin Jackson that converts TeX fonts into Vfont(5) format and a Versatec driver that uses those fonts. However, we haven't yet done anything with that software locally. We are also currently actively making modifications to the Versatec driver. For example, we've been converting from an older font format to the newer font format, trying to add horizontal printing (for fan fold paper) in addition to the vertical printing (for roll paper), etc. Consequently, our TeX directories are in a bit of disarray. At some future time (a couple of months?), we expect to get everything into order and announce a distribution. However, if you have a more immediate need for the software (on a "you take what you get" basis) please contact me. Incidentally, there is a "TeX User's Group" (TUG). For information, you can contact TeX User's Group, c/o American Mathematical Society, P.O. Box 6248, Providence, Rhode Island 02940. 1982 membership cost is $15.00 which includes a subscription to the newsletter, the "TUGboat". This is probably the best way to keep current on what's happening with TeX. --Rick Furuta@Washington (ARPAnet) or ...decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta (uucp) ...ucbvax!lbl-unix!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta -------