UKTeX V89 #08 Friday 24 February 1989
RE: UKTeX V89 #07
Accessing the TeX archives
RNOtoTeX: missing file
Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
TeX Drivers for LN03R Postscript Printer
Non-text files in the archive
Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
Editor Peter Abbott
Issue 09 (Friday March 3) will be posted on Thursday March 2 and issue 10
will be posted Friday March 17. There will be no issue on March 10 as I
shall be in Portland, Oregon.
Latest TeXhax in the Archive is #10 (09 and 10 received Feb 22 1989)
Latest TeXmag in the Archive is V2N6
---------------------------------
Message-Id: <24646.8902171425@itspna.ed.ac.uk>
Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Fri, 17 Feb 89 14:25:45 GMT
Date: Fri Feb 17 14:26:20 GMT 1989
From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis
Firstly, my thanks to: Brian Tompsett at Edinburgh University for the
facilities on Tardis (so-named because it's a big, blue box which falls
over a lot), Phil Taylor for making the request which obtained said
facilities, Peter Abbott for the tapes, David Osborne for his tape, and
anybody else who may have helped.
I'm the TeX "Sorcerer's Apprentice" on our VAX, keeping half a step ahead
of my users whilst trying to coerce LaTeX into meeting various company
requirements for document formats. Every problem I unearth seems to have
more lurking behind it - I'm beginning to suspect TeX is fractal in that
respect. For instance, to send this message I had to take a crash-course
in UNIX, (I'm *not* ungrateful Brian, but it's *worse* than MESS-DOS); come
back VMS, all is forgiven.
Software versions:
TeX VAX VMS version 2.0
LaTeX 2.09 <3 JAN 1988> (Article style dated 12 Oct 1987)
MF VAX VMS version 1.0
INIMF VAX VMS version 1.0
1) LaTeX: I defined some commands for a document style, and would like to
restrict their use to the preamble. The hook mentioned in latex.tex
(\let\do = \noexpand, \edef\@preamblecmds{\@preamblecmds \do\mycommand})
dies horribly. Reason - the \do's in the \@preamblecmd list stop the
existing commands expanding but they themselves vanish in the process. My
feeble attempts to find an answer have simply proved how little I
understand TeX's expansion mechanism. Can anyone tell me (and Dr Lamport)
what should be used instead?
2) LaTeX: I needed a strut to go with 12pt type so, whilst mildly cursing
L.L. for not providing a \strut that coped with size-changing commands, I
looked in lfonts.tex to see what value of baselineskip went with 12pt type.
Imagine my surprise when I found \strut re-defined in lfonts.tex so that it
copes with size-changing commands. Is this an unauthorised (but welcome)
change to lfonts.tex or is it an omission from the LaTeX manual? Go on
Leslie, find \strut in the index - or anywhere else! ;-}
3) LaTeX: A customer (U.S. Gov't) decreed that we produce documents with a
section titled `Definition of Abbreviations, Terms and Symbols' (you or I
might have chosen `Definitions' or `Glossary'). The resultant output was
`Definition ..... Sym-bols', the dangling `bols' being disconcerting to
those of us with a sensitive disposition. Since this occurred in the early
days of our battles with LaTeX it took an embarrassingly long time for us
to discover that \sloppy was the solution (in retrospect it's obvious that
none of the many approaches we tried were remotely sensible). I know that
some people (Hi, Leslie) advise against long section headings, but
sometimes they're unavoidable. Should LaTeX's sectioning macros be altered
(please don't hit me, Dr Lamport) to be \sloppy?
4) INIMF: When I try and run INIMF so that I can build a version of MF which
knows what a DEC LN03 is (at least I *think* that's what I should be
doing), the stack-dump tells me that an array index value is out of range
in module `userreset'. I TANGLED it and the compiler warned (at line 6127)
that `readyalready' had not been initialised - the resultant executable, of
course, failed in exactly the same way as the original. Can anyone tell me
what to do - I assume I need to modify the change file (see point 8 below).
In case you're wondering how I managed to do anything with MF: I use a
command procedure which MF's WAITS.MF, inputs the required file and renames
WAITS.GF to whatever - convoluted, but it works (I expect at least 317
people to write in and tell me that I missed the blindingly obvious).
5) METAFONT: X'ing out of Metafont after causes a stack dump with an
access violation. Related to point 4?
6) METAFONT: I decided to build elvish; the files were located in
`zaphod$dua1:[public.mffiles.exterfonts.elvish]' which was a holding area
whilst I looked at them. I ran the command procedure (see point 4 above)
and watched things run long enough to be sure things were O.K., then I
killed it and submitted it to a batch queue. It ran for the rest of the
afternoon. It ran all night using 100% of a microvax's CPU... it would be
going still if I hadn't stopped it.
Investigation showed that it could not cope with inputting `tincoma',
though it could manage shorter file names. If I run the command procedure
interactively it's still away with the fairies, but it works if I type the
commands interactively!????
7) METAFONT: Could someone please send me the write-white mods for cmbase
and the appropriate mode_defs for an LN03?
8) CHANGE FILES FOR MF and TeX: I would appreciate it if someone could
send me the change files I need to bring these up to the current revision
(I saw \lowercase{Barbara Beeton's} warnings that there were
complications). Is there anything I need to know about doing this under
VMS?
+-------------------------------+
| Paul L. Allen | Disclaimer: The opinions presented here
| Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd | are my own and are not necessarily
| T.E.G. Lab, | those of Ferranti International Signal
| Robertson Ave | (who would never have released me from my
| Edinburgh EH11 1PX | strait-jacket if they realised I could
| Tel. 031 337 2442 Ext. 3246 | get access to a modem).
+-------------------------------+
- - - - - - - - - -
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly how TeX
works, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more
bizarrely inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
(With apologies to Douglas Adams and Donald E. Knuth)
- - - - - - - - - -
---------------------------------
Date: 17-FEB-1989 17:24:58 GMT
From: CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB
Subject: RE: UKTeX V89 #07
Sender: JANET"CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB" <CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB>
Reply-to: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) <P.Taylor@Uk.Ac.Rhbnc.Vaxb>
Originally-to: JANET"ABBOTTP@UK.AC.ASTON"
Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.3a (02-Feb-1989)
Stuart ---
>>>From: CENSWM@UK.AC.HW.VAXB
>>>Subject: Postscript.
>>>To all you Postscript experts out there!
>>>Why is it when I send a postscript print file from MS Word to our LN03R
>>>postscript printer on a VAX it does not print. I thought Postscript was
>>>`standard' and would work on any postscript machine (no doubt I am being
>>>optimistic). I would be gratefull for any info as to where the problem
>>>lies.
How about telling us how it fails, so we stand some faint chance of helping
you ?
>>>Are there any better versions of DvitoVDU available, that support Tektronix
>>>41xx series of terminals? I understand that T4010 emulations are not feasible
>>>as you cant have a text area using t4010.
I have a version which supports Tek 4010 emulators, if that would help ?
>>>I would even consider buying such a product! as our users are moaning about
>>>poor previewing on our VAX
Great ! I'll be in touch.
** Phil.
---------------------------------
Received: from casandra.cs.aber.ac.uk by athene.cs.aber.ac.uk; Fri, 17 Feb 89 18:31:06 GMT
From: kas@uk.ac.aber.cs
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 89 18:29:53 GMT
Message-Id: <6301.8902171829@casandra.cs.aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Accessing the TeX archives
At present I use LaTeX on a Sun 3/60, but have to resort to Textures
on a Macintosh SE when I want to include diagrams in a document. I'm
looking for ways round this. In particular I have the psfig macros,
but need dvips in order to use them. Do you know where I could get
hold of this, or of any alternatives?
Kevin.
Robotics Research Group
University College Of Wales
Aberystwyth.
JANET: kas@uk.ac.aber.cs
---------------------------------
Date: 20-FEB-1989 11:01:06 GMT
From: CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB
Subject: RNOtoTeX: missing file
Sender: JANET"CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB" <CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB>
Reply-to: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) <P.Taylor@Uk.Ac.Rhbnc.Vaxb>
Originally-to: $UK-TEX
Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.3a (02-Feb-1989)
Simon Radford du Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique has kindly
pointed out that the file "RNOtoTeX.Ini" was omitted from RNOtoTeX.All
as sent to the Aston archive. I attach the missing file; perhaps Peter
would be kind enough to integrate it into the RNOtoTeX source. ** Phil.
[Start of attached file: TEX$ROOT:[RUNOFF]RNOTOTEX.INI;1]
+++Editor - The files have been unpacked and the subdirectory is
[public.vms.rno-to-tex] +++
---------------------------------
Date: 21-FEB-1989 09:31:15 GMT
From: FPS@UK.AC.IMPERIAL.CC.VAXA
************************************************************
UK TuG
UK TeX Users' Group
The second meeting of UK TuG will be held on Wednesday,
15 March, 1989 at the London School of Economics, Houghton
Street, Aldwych, London WC2A 2AE. The meeting will start at
10.00 am. A small charge (no more than \quid2.00) will be
made to recover some of the costs of room hire, teas and
coffees.
------------------------------------------------------------
Speakers will include:
Dave Brightly (psfig)
Tony Norris (chemical diagrams)
Adrian Clark (halftones)
Sebastian Rahtz (picture languages)
There will also be:
demonstrations of some recent implementations of TeX on
interesting hardware (to be confirmed);
But most importantly,
the organisation of the group's structure and future
activities.
------------------------------------------------------------
In order to allow us to estimate numbers, or for further
information, contact:
Malcolm Clark or Carol Hewlett
Computer Centre Computer Unit
Imperial College London School of Economics
Exhibition Road Houghton Street
London SW7 2BP London WC2A 2AE
email:
TeXline@Imperial.cc.vaxa Hewlett@lse.vax2
tel:
01 589 5111 ex4949 01 405 7686
------------------------------------------------------------
LSE is about equidistant from Holborn and Temple Tube
stations. Houghton Street runs north from the Aldwych.
It may also be approached from Kingsway through Portugal
Street.
************************************************************
---------------------------------
Date: 22-FEB-1989 09:09:34 GMT
From: PHYHJR@UK.AC.HW.VAXB
Subject: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
As it appears that .pxl fonts are rapidly going out of fashion no
doubt all TeX users will convert to another format (.pk). However
as far as I am aware there are no Suntools previewers which can read
fonts in any format other than pxl. At present I use dvipage (I also
have dvitool).
Have these been updated to allow use of .pk fonts or are there any
alternatives ?
Harvey Richardson,
e-mail : JANET - phyhjr@uk.ac.hw.clust
INTERNET - phyhjr%clust.hw.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu
BITNET - phyhjr%clust.hw.ac.uk@ukacrl.bitnet
mail : Physics Department
Heriot-Watt University
Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK.
phone : (+44) 031-451-3047
---------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 11:36 GMT
From: ANDY PICKERING - DAOPP OXFORD UNIV. U.K. <ATMAJP@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX>
Subject: TeX Drivers for LN03R Postscript Printer
Dear Peter,
Charles Curran at OUCS gave me your address, we have a new
DEC LN03-R postscript printer on our VAX 6210 running VMS V5 and would
like to send TeX output to it.
Would it be possible to get a copy of a Postscript Driver for this
machine, and if so how do I go about getting one ? There may also be
a requirement to drive this printer with TeX from an IBM PC compatable,
is this possible ?
We also have an HP LaserJet Plus which is in need of a new CM font
compatable driver if you have one,
regards,
Andy Pickering.
ISAMS Project System Manager
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics.
Oxford University
---------------------------------
Message-Id: <26012.8902221338@itspna.ed.ac.uk>
Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Wed, 22 Feb 89 13:38:00 GMT
Date: Wed Feb 22 13:38:22 GMT 1989
From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis
After seeing RNO-TO-TEX mentioned in UKTeX89.07, I immediately pulled it
down over JANET, and spent many a happy hour Kermit'ing it at 1200 Baud to
my VAX (Luxury - when Ah were a lad, we 'ad two empty baked-bean tins tied
together wi' string an' we shouted `zero' and `one' down them) [You were
lucky, we didn't even have t'string] <We only had the one baked-bean tin, so
I'd shout `zero' or `one' into it and run two mile down't street so that t'lad
at t'other end could hear it before t'sound died away> {Street? Don't tha
talk to me about street}.
I was very impressed with the emulation of UNIX shar decoding - I have
previously hacked real shar files (Elvish, etc.) apart by hand. Then I
tried executing compile_rnototex.com... it fails because there are no PEN
(Pascal Environment) files generated. A fix is to change line 1 from
...PASCAL/OPTIMIZE/NOCHECK"
to
...PASCAL/OPTIMIZE/NOCHECK/ENVIRONMENT"
There might be some unnecessary PEN files created, but it works.
Guess what, the link_rnototex procedure falls over as well; the fix is
to change line 1 from
...THEN $ PI="NODEBUG"
to
...THEN $ P1="NODEBUG"
and again, all is well. You could of course alter the .shar file if you
knew how to tweak the checksum.
At last, I execute setup.com, and try out rnototex. Setup.com defines
init$rnototex to be rnototex.ini. There is NO rnototex.ini. Neither
init$rnototex nor rnototex.ini is mentioned in any of the documentation.
The thing refuses to work without rnototex.ini so I created a dummy file -
now it runs, but cannot recognise any runoff commands apart from
section headers - this leads to the assumption that the ini file is
responsible for initial definition of a translation table (rno-to-tex
claims to keep track of changes to flag characters).
The missing PEN files can be explained by inadequate testing - somebody
checked his shar procedure with old PEN files hanging around. The PI
fault can be explained by developers invoking the procedure with debug out
of habit. I have no idea where rnototex.ini went to - it's not mentioned in
the bill of lading, again the developers could have missed it out if there
was an old one hanging around in the working directory.
Phil's description of this utility in issue 7 gave ne the impression that
he'd tried it, and it worked. So what's gone wrong?
+-------------------------------+
| Paul L. Allen | Disclaimer: The opinions presented here
| Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd | are my own and are not necessarily
| T.E.G. Lab, | those of Ferranti International Signal.
| Robertson Ave |
| Edinburgh EH11 1PX | When in panic, or in doubt:
| Tel. 031 337 2442 Ext. 3246 | Run in circles, sceam and shout!
+-------------------------------+
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggh!
---------------------------------
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id AA02147; Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:34:59 gmt
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id AA22066; Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:39:42 GMT
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:39:42 GMT
From: jg@uk.ac.oxford.prg
Message-Id: <8902221239.AA22066@uk.ac.oxford.prg.client23>
Subject: Non-text files in the archive
Is there any possibility of encoding some of the non-text
files in the Aston archive as text files? I have failed to
persuade any of the .tfm and .pxl files to make their way over
here; if there were a uuencode in Aston, or a decoding program
here for some VMS encoding method, then I could transfer stuff
easily.
Do you know of any such (or indeed, any other) method of transferring
non-text files?
Jeremy Gibbons
Oxford University
---------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:01 GMT
From: Piete Brooks <pb@uk.ac.cam.cl>
Cc: uktex-request@uk.ac.aston
Subject: Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
Message-Id: <pb.89.02.22.18:01.140@scaup>
In-Reply-To: Richard Tobin's message of Wed, 22 Feb 89 1625 GMT
> I have a more recent version of dvipage which understands gf fonts
> (we don't bother with pk, and I don't know whether it accepts them).
* Does ASTON know about it / have a copy ?
> You can get it by anonymous niftp from us. Use the command
>
> cpf '<DISTRIB>dvipage.tar'@ed.aiai dvipage.tar
> or
> hhcp ed.aiai:'<DISTRIB>dvipage.tar' dvipage.tar
* No binary switch ??
+++Editor - We have the space if someone cares to send it. +++
---------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:25:53 GMT
Message-Id: <12644.8902221825@aiai.ed.ac.uk>
From: Richard Tobin <richard@uk.ac.ed.aiai>
Subject: Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts
In-Reply-To: Piete Brooks's message of Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:01 GMT
Cc: uktex-request@uk.ac.aston
> > I have a more recent version of dvipage which understands gf fonts
> > (we don't bother with pk, and I don't know whether it accepts them).
> * Does ASTON know about it / have a copy ?
Well, if they didn't, they should now :-)
I got it by mailing the author.
> * No binary switch ??
Tar'd text files appear to not need it. There are no bytes in the file
with the high-order bit set. Should one use binary mode to inhibit e.g.
lf <-> cr/lf transformations? Such things would presumably only matter
for non-unix sites, for whom transferring the data is but the least of
their problems...
- -- Richard
---------------------------------
!!
!! Files of interest [public]000aston.readme
!! [public]000directory.list
!! [public]000directory_dates.list
!! [public]000directory.size
!! [public]000last30days.files
!!
!! Editor - I have a tape labelled TeX 2.95 LaTeX 2.09 Metafont 1.7
!! Unix 4.2/3BSD & System V. Tar 1600 bpi blocked
!! 20 1 file dated 30 January 1989 (from washington.edu).
!!
!! I have the facility to copy this tape for anyone who sends the following
!! 1 2400 tape with return labels AND RETURN postage.
!!
!! Send to
!!
!! P Abbott
!! Computing Service
!! Aston University
!! Aston Triangle
!! Birmingham B4 7ET
!!
!! A VMS backup of the archive requires 2 (two ) 2400' tapes at 6250bpi.
!! Remaining details as above.
!! Other tape options in the pipeline.
!!
!! Replies/submissions to info-tex@uk.ac.aston please
!! distribution changes to info-tex-request@uk.ac.aston please
!!
!! end of issue