jds@duke.UUCP (Joe D. Sloan) (07/09/85)
The July 1985 Dr. Dobb's Journal has an ad for TEX for the IBM-PC? Has anyone used it or does anyone know more? Joe Sloan duke!jds
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (07/11/85)
> The July 1985 Dr. Dobb's Journal has an ad for TEX for > the IBM-PC? Has anyone used it or does anyone know more? > > Joe Sloan > duke!jds There are two different implementations of TeX for the IBM PC -- the one advertized in DDJ and one implemented by David Fuchs, available from Addison Wesley for $495 (less 10% educational discount to schools). I have this version running on my PC XT. I have not tested it thoroughly, and the "System Guide" manual is stamped "Preliminary Uncorrected Proofs" so it appears to be a "pre-release version." It works, and provides eye-popping output on an FX 80+ dot matrix printer (at 240 dots/inch). First quality output is very slow (6 passes of the print head per printed line) but the results are spectacular, particularly for complex equations. The program requires 512K or memory (640K is better -- the manual implies it's a tight fit in 512K) and a hard disk (fonts take up about 4 MB). TeX loads in about 10 seconds, and chews through a demo math page in about 5. According to Fuchs, an XT can set the whole TeXbook (500 pp) in a bit over 4 hours (an AT takes less than 2). A driver is included in the package that runs IBM Matrix printers, IBM Graphics printers, or the Epson FX, MX and RX printers. The output files from the program (called MicroTeX) are TeX-standard .dvi files than can be typeset on any systems you have a driver for. The Epson driver permits a "quality" adjustment -- lower quality output for proofreading is quite respectably fast -- and the "plain" TeX macros are pre-loaded with the TeX processor. Outstanding quality is possible with a bit of fiddling: if you magnify your document by 40% before processing, then photo-reduce your resulting printout by about the same amount, the effective resolution is improved enough so it rivals output from a LaserWriter. I have no experience with the other TeX implementation, and probably won't ever have -- I'm sold on this one. Usual disclaimer: I've never met David Fuchs and wouldn't know Addsion Wesley if I met him in a parking lot. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA