rchattam@isis.cs.du.edu (King Chattam) (04/18/91)
Hi Netters, I am looking for the MS DOS version of PCTex or MicroTex. These are not available in local computer supply stores. Could anyone please let me know where I can purchase a personal copy of it. I would also like to know about printer drivers if any required for using this with HP Laset Jet II/ III rchattam@nyx.cs.du.edu .
bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) (04/18/91)
Recently I bought a copy of pcTeX 3.0, and I'm quite happy with it. I don't suggest you buy it through a discount house, though. PcTeX requires a screen previewer and a device driver for your printer, and discount houses seem to sell only the generic TeX program, leaving you to buy the monitor- and printer-specific programs from Personal TeX. I "saved" money by buying all three programs together from Personal TeX. PcTeX 3.0 for the PC, screen viewer, and driver for the Laser Jet II and III sell together for $499. I comes with LaTeX, BiBTeX, SliTeX, letter.sty, some others, and the AmS Macros, which I use. Lamport's LaTeX manual and a nice user's manual by Spivak are included. PcTeX Inc. is small, and I found their Sales Director quite human. (I got a small discount for being a povery-stricken scholar.) They recommend Epsilon for an editor and MicroSpell for a spelling checker, and sell these along with other TeX-related items in their little catalog. Personal TeX, Inc., 12 Madrona Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941. (415) 388-8853. Bruce Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst
dfr@usna.NAVY.MIL (Prof. David F. Rogers) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr18.021856.9558@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> rchattam@isis.cs.du.edu (King Chattam) writes:
!
! I am looking for the MS DOS version of PCTex or MicroTex.
!
! Could anyone please let me know where I can purchase a personal copy
!of it. I would also like to know about printer drivers if any required
!for using this with HP Laset Jet II/ III
MicroTeX is a product of Arbortext in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their
telephone number is 313-996-3566.
Dave Rogersjcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) (04/19/91)
In article <8423@idunno.Princeton.EDU> bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes: >Recently I bought a copy of pcTeX 3.0, and I'm quite happy with >[...stuff deleted...] >programs from Personal TeX. I "saved" money by buying all three >programs together from Personal TeX. > >PcTeX 3.0 for the PC, screen viewer, and driver for the Laser Jet >II and III sell together for $499. I comes with LaTeX, BiBTeX, >SliTeX, letter.sty, some others, and the AmS Macros, which I use. >Lamport's LaTeX manual and a nice user's manual by Spivak are >included. PcTeX Inc. is small, and I found their Sales Director quite >human. (I got a small discount for being a povery-stricken scholar.) > >They recommend Epsilon for an editor and MicroSpell for a >spelling checker, and sell these along with other TeX-related >items in their little catalog. Personal TeX, Inc., 12 Madrona >Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941. (415) 388-8853. > >Bruce > Perhaps you should check the FAQ list for this newsgroup...there are several PD versions of TeX/LaTeX/BibTex for the PC...I'm not against people spending money but... For the money (or lack) EmTeX is a wonderful package. It contains EVERYTHING you'll need, TeX, LaTeX, BibTeX, Metafont, dvi* => dvi drivers for most popular laser AND dot matrix printers. As for an editor, try using microemacs...I've used it quite a bit with EmTeX and haven't had any problems...Both Packages are available over the net (look in the FAQ in this newsgroup for locations for emtex - can't remember where I got it from - and look in the comp.emacs newsgroup for the location of microemacs). The total price for this? ~$50 for the TeX & LaTeX manuals (which I purchased through a bookstore). I've used both PCTeX and EmTeX, I like EmTeX MUCH better! (and there are other things I can use $500 for...:-) John +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | John Burton | | G & A Technical Software | | jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov | | jcburt@cs.wm.edu | | | | Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say...These are *my* views, not those | | of anyone else, be they employer, school, or government| +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas) (04/20/91)
In <1991Apr19.122614.21050@news.larc.nasa.gov> jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) writes: >In article <8423@idunno.Princeton.EDU> bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes: >>Recently I bought a copy of pcTeX 3.0, and I'm quite happy with >>[...stuff deleted...] >>programs from Personal TeX. I "saved" money by buying all three >>programs together from Personal TeX. >> >>PcTeX 3.0 for the PC, screen viewer, and driver for the Laser Jet >>II and III sell together for $499. I comes with LaTeX, BiBTeX, [......] >Perhaps you should check the FAQ list for this newsgroup...there are several >PD versions of TeX/LaTeX/BibTex for the PC...I'm not against people spending >money but... >For the money (or lack) EmTeX is a wonderful package. It contains EVERYTHING >you'll need, TeX, LaTeX, BibTeX, Metafont, dvi* => dvi drivers for most popular >laser AND dot matrix printers. As for an editor, try using microemacs...I've [....] >newsgroup for the location of microemacs). The total price for this? ~$50 >for the TeX & LaTeX manuals (which I purchased through a bookstore). I've >used both PCTeX and EmTeX, I like EmTeX MUCH better! (and there are other things >I can use $500 for...:-) I used to use PCTeX 2.93, which I got really really really cheap through a university site license. It was a fine product. It includes an excellent introductory manual written by Michael Spivak. Recently, I decided to try EmTeX version 3. It works great. The documentation is rather weak, but if you know basically what you are doing, it is no real problem. The price is right. And you get a big version at no extra charge. I found the PCTeX dot-matrix printer drivers to be quite poor. Now, this may have improved since, and I don't want to give Personal TeX an undeserved bad name, but that was my experience, and I switched to the EmTeX drivers some time ago. I didn't have any documentation for the PCTeX drivers, which may just have been a quirk of the site license, and I couldn't find any way to adjust the position of the output on the page. This is a problem... And the EmTeX previewer is possably the best there is. In short, PCTeX itself is an excellent implementation. I was very unimpressed with the drivers at that time, but this may have improved. However, EmTeX is just as good, and it costs a great deal less. As far as I can see, the only thing you really give up is the excellent manual. -- < Michael Pereckas <> m-pereckas@uiuc.edu <> Just another student... > "This desoldering braid doesn't work. What's this cheap stuff made of, anyway?" "I don't know, looks like solder to me."
rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) (04/20/91)
Where can EmTex be gotten? Is it on the net? Rich
dfr@usna.NAVY.MIL (Prof. David F. Rogers) (04/20/91)
>As for an editor, try using microemacs...I've ^^^^^^^^^^ >used it quite a bit with EmTeX and haven't had any problems.. Also try using JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs). I've used this successfully for several years under MSDOS, Unix and on a Mac. It is, as the name implies, very much like Emacs but not quite as extensible BUT uses much less system resource. Consequently I feel it is better on the small machines. Also available on the net from Rochester. Dave Rogers
xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu (Xiaofei Wang) (04/21/91)
/* dfr@usna.NAVY.MIL (Prof. David F. Rogers) wrote */: * >As for an editor, try using microemacs...I've * ^^^^^^^^^^ * >used it quite a bit with EmTeX and haven't had any problems.. * this successfully for several years under MSDOS, Unix and on a Mac. I use ``vi'' under msdos and unix and vms. I found it quicker and takes less memory [msdos] than microemacs. The ``vi'' for msdos is currently available from comp.binaries.ibm.pc. -- xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu / rutgers!ub!xiaofei / v118raqa@ubvms.bitnet
bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) (04/23/91)
Thanks to all for the many responses about EmTeX. Mathematician friends of mine had heard that TeX was impossible to learn until we formatted a page of each of their manuscripts, only an hour after installing PcTeX. Each is an academic (hence poverty stricken), but want TeX on their hard drives now; so I'll install EmTeX for them. PcTeX's screen and dot-matrix printer drivers are dated Oct 1989. The printer driver has several options, including one to displace the printout on the paper; it has two qualities of printouts, draft (3 passes a line) and final (6 passes a line). The default quality is draft, and this is all I need, for I intended to upload my dvi files to the University mainframe and use the attached laser printers for my final drafts. However, the quality final is of such good quality, that I use my Epson printer for virtually all my final drafts instead. ps. I'm providing information, not recommending one TeX over another. Thanks for the several letters about EmTeX. Bruce Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst