[comp.text.tex] Help - my 10pt fonts print w/16pts base-to-base, not 12

peter@cayman.com (Peter H. Schmidt) (07/16/90)

I have an AT&T Unix PC (3.51m OS) with a Panasonic KX-P1124 24 pin dot matrix
printer attached.  I have spent the past 7 nights trying to get my printer
to play nice with LaTeX.  I have modified the dvieps driver so that it knows
that my Panasonic only has 180 vertical dpi, I have recompiled all the fonts
with a new local.mf that reflects the 180/240 aspect ratio, and I have set
1200 as the STDMAG (1200/1000 = 240/200).  

When I print \normalsize type, it is 10pts high and correctly proportioned,
which is by the book.  Unfortunately, the base-to-base spacing is 16pts (I
bought a sizing-gauge), while the TeXbook says it should be 12pts.

Now, 16/12 = 1.33333, which by coincidence also  = 240/180.  So, is something
assuming I'm using square pixels, even though the local.mf file says they
are rectangular?  If so, what???  I have been all through the driver, but I 
can't claim I have a good understanding of it.  Right now, everything looks
correct - I've verified the printer control codes with my manual, and the
#defines are doing the right thing.

Can someone please enlighten me?  I'm going bonkers - the type is so nice
looking that you can almost overlook the bogus spacing.  But not quite.
I started hacking on vers. 2.10 of dvieps.c, BTW.

Thanks -- Peter