dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (08/31/90)
In article <9008301740.AA18499@jade.berkeley.edu>, DLV@CUNYVMS1.BITNET writes... |>We've been playing eith emTeX drivers, and I'm very very happy with them. |>In particular, they work with PK fonts (we haven't had any PXL files around |>our disks for quite some time). It doesn't bother me that there are a few |>extra instructions in the driver that will make use of PXL fonts if PK files |>can't be found. But it evidently bothers Don Hosek so much that he said: |>>The emTeX drivers have one great weakness: they use PXL files (or |>>at least the last release I looked at did). Arguments against PXL |>>files: they're big (PK files average around 17% the size of PXL |>>files. Maybe some of you have gobs of disk space to blow on this |>>sort of thing, but most micro people I know don't), they only |>>support 128 characters in a font (a big problem for the new |>>generations of fonts being created with ISO 8859 coding). This was an error on my part. I should have indicated also that when I looked at the emTeX package, all the documentation was in German and my German is quite lousy if not nearly non-existant. My impression based on that and what I had heard at the time of the original release was that the drivers read ONLY pxl files. I've since been corrected and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I don't remember what else I said in that posting for you to say, |>Unless my understanding of written English is worse than I believe, you seem |>to imply that emTeX drivers work ONLY with PXL fonts, and because of this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |>dismiss the entire package. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That was not my intent. If it had been the case that the drivers worked only with PXL files, I would have been ready to dismiss the drivers. PXL files have been obsolete since 1984. That's SIX YEARS. PK files have been around for almost as long. Given those dates and the great problems with PXL files (e.g., PXL files do not have all necessary information for proper positioning of characters on the page), I am more than happy to dismiss the quality of any driver which can only read PXL files. But, as I indicated, this part of the discussion is the result of a misunderstanding on my part, and I apologize for my misstatemenet about the emTeX drivers. I'll address Dimitri's other points in a separate posting. -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info
dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (08/31/90)
In article <9008301740.AA18499@jade.berkeley.edu>, DLV@CUNYVMS1.BITNET writes... >We've been playing eith emTeX drivers, and I'm very very happy with them. >In particular, they work with PK fonts (we haven't had any PXL files around >our disks for quite some time). It doesn't bother me that there are a few >extra instructions in the driver that will make use of PXL fonts if PK files >can't be found. But it evidently bothers Don Hosek so much that he said: >>The emTeX drivers have one great weakness: they use PXL files (or >>at least the last release I looked at did). Arguments against PXL >>files: they're big (PK files average around 17% the size of PXL >>files. Maybe some of you have gobs of disk space to blow on this >>sort of thing, but most micro people I know don't), they only >>support 128 characters in a font (a big problem for the new >>generations of fonts being created with ISO 8859 coding). This was an error on my part. I should have indicated also that when I looked at the emTeX package, all the documentation was in German and my German is quite lousy if not nearly non-existant. My impression based on that and what I had heard at the time of the original release was that the drivers read ONLY pxl files. I've since been corrected and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I don't remember what else I said in that posting for you to say, >Unless my understanding of written English is worse than I believe, you seem >to imply that emTeX drivers work ONLY with PXL fonts, and because of this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >dismiss the entire package. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That was not my intent. If it had been the case that the drivers worked only with PXL files, I would have been ready to dismiss the drivers. PXL files have been obsolete since 1984. That's SIX YEARS. PK files have been around for almost as long. Given those dates and the great problems with PXL files (e.g., PXL files do not have all necessary information for proper positioning of characters on the page), I am more than happy to dismiss the quality of any driver which can only read PXL files. But, as I indicated, this part of the discussion is the result of a misunderstanding on my part, and I apologize for my misstatemenet about the emTeX drivers. I'll address Dimitri's other points in a separate posting. -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info
ward@sneezy.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Ward) (09/01/90)
I have tried dosTeX, sb30TeX, Nelson Beebe's DVI drivers, and the Aug 90
version of emTeX. I found that emTeX is easily installed, well documented,
complete, functional (TeX, LaTeX, DVISCR (vga), DVIDOT (mx80), MF, MFJOB),
and reasonably fast. It is an outstanding implementation of TeX for MSDOS
and will probably cause people who charge for impelemtations much grief
(emTeX is free)!
With the previous articles having such a negative tone about emTeX I
thought I ought to post something that reflects its true character.
Thanks and appreciation go to Eberhard Mattes for making it all possible.
You can get emTeX via FTP from:
terminator.cc.umich.edu (here in the states - University of Michigan)
rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (Stuttgart Germany - i would guess)
login as 'anonymous'.
From the emTeX documentation I understand you can also mail formatted
5.25 high density floppy disks and a self addressed, return postage paid
package to:
Eberhard Mattes
Teckstrasse 81
D-7141 Moeglingen
Federal Republic of Germany
and he will send the latest version to you.
Pass the good word along!
Mike
ward@sneezy.cs.wisc.edunmouawad@water.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) (09/02/90)
Okay guys ... cool it down. We *all* know that the Emtex package is
excellent, that it can read .PK and .FLI files... Don made a
mistake. He apologized twice or three times ... I'm not a reader
of TUG but I got the impression that he is doing a great job...
So, let us go on hapily discussing Latex/Tex/Metafont issues and
how to install them on system Zorglub using Printer Shmurbluk ...
Maybe we should let Groo join this groupe :)
May your day be exempt of flames.
Naji.
--
---------------+-------------------------------------------
| Naji Mouawad | nmouawad@water.waterloo.edu |
| University |-------------------------------------------|
| Of Waterloo | "Thanks God, we cannot prove He Exists." |dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (09/04/90)
Oops. I accidentally sent out an old version of a previous posting just now and of course Vnews doesn't have the ability to cancel articles. The first time that I've wished VMS _didn't_ have backup versions... -dh