TeXhax Digest Wednesday, June 10, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 44 [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]TEXHAX44.87 Editor: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: Free DVI screening program A modified version of the Rose LN03 Driver C source for TeX? Where? Two column style Big screens Bad LN03 output. Increasing TeX's Memory Capacity? TEX fonts for RICOH laser printers LATEX.BUG Re: Increasing TeX's Memory Capacity? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 28-May-87 00:44:26-PDT,2699;000000000000 Date: Wed, 27 May 87 13:02:21 GMT From: "W.G. Sullivan" Subject: Free DVI screening program To: TeXHaX I have written a program for viewing TeX DVI files on the graphics screen of an MS-DOS PC which I should like to make available free to anyone who might find use for it. It is small and fast and only requires the DVI file as input, so it may be used even on a single floppy PC provided there is some other source to produce the DVI file. The snag is that only Plain TeX fonts are supported, which is an intolerable hindrance for the hack who writes each paragraph in a different font. Beginners, however, may find it very handy, and the hack may be cunning enough to do some font switches in order to use it. Some font substitution is intended for later versions. In early April I sent out a number of copies on floppies to various universities in the hope that through computer bulletin boards it would become generally available. The originally released version CDVI 0.5 was for Hercules graphics or CGA graphics. Future releases will include Olivetti/ATT 640x400 graphics and possibly others. Is there a central bulletin board through which such programs can be distributed? It is too much trouble to try to distribute individually free software. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 87 10:45 CST From: Subject: A modified version of the Rose LN03 Driver To: TeXhax@score.stanford.edu X-Original-To: TeXhax@score.stanford.edu, BELL Hmmm... I've seen several questions posted lately concerning the Flavio Rose version of the LN03 driver. Considering the (almost) inundating response I elicited when I offered my AutoLetter procedures I almost hesitate to make the following announcement...but I've never been the wisest of people anyway. I have made some modifications of the Rose LN03 driver (the C version) which have (at least to me) helped some of the problems which I have had with it. Since I can only test these on a VMS system, I have no idea of the ramifications these changes might have on a UNIX machine. Basically I have done the following: (1) Modified the way in which the program looks for PXL files. TeX$PXLDIR is now defined to be (for example) $ define TeX$PXLDIR DRB3:[TEX82.PXL.] (note the addition of the period before the bracket). All the PXL files are then on subdirectories of that directory. For example, what would usually be DRB3:[TEX82.PXL]CMR10.1500PXL is now DRB3:[TEX82.PXL.1500]CMR10.PXL (shades of K & S). This (to me) rids the program of the problem of having all of the pixel files on one huge directory...if you wish to see if you have particular font at a particular magnification, it makes it much simpler. (2) Added two new qualifiers---LANDSCAPE and PORTRAIT. Yes, Flavio, it can be done. Even though all of the TeX fonts are defined in portrait mode, it is possible (although I believe undocumented) for you to access fonts defined for one orientation even while you are printing in another orientation. Whether or not DIGITAL thinks this is a problem to be fixed remains to be seen. All I know is that this works on every LN03 through V4.4 of the microcode and it works on the LN03+. (3) Modified the qualifiers so that the names are more mnemonic for the casual user. For example, the /H (for Horizontal offset) qualifier is /HOFFSET. Similarly, /V, /S, and /N are now /VOFFSET, /START, and /NUMBER. These, however, are the long versions and anything between Flavio's one letter abbreviations and my extended versions may be used (e.g., /hoff). (Obviously, this avoids any compatability problems.) The minimum abbreviations for my two qualifiers are /LAND and /PORT. Also, I have added some modifications which enable the addition of qualifiers. Ones which I have in mind (but have not yet implemented) are: (a) /PXLDIR= --- Specify an alternate pixel directory. (b) /FONTDIR= --- Specify an alternate font directory. (c) /MAGNIFICATION --- Boost the magnification. (d) /PAGES=(n1:n2,...) --- Specify page range(s). (Easier for most people, although more difficult to program.) (e) Make the offset qualifier capable of using a dimension other than just pixels (e.g., inches, cm, etc.). My version also modified the default horizontal and vertical offsets, as people around here tend to offset the stuff from within TeX. (4) Created a command procedure which makes DVI2LN3 look more like a DCL command. This procedure (called LNTeX...please no complaints from K & S) does syntax checking and so on, but it allows users to enter qualifiers in the same manner as normal DCL commands and then passes them on to DVI2LN3. These are the primary modifications I made in the code (just the files DVI2LN3.C and DVI2LN3NFT.C). I also (for local purposes) eliminated the checking for the LN03 pixel files (the notorious NFT files) because we can generate all of the pixel files for the CM fonts now for our LN03...I just commented this line out, however, so the check can be added back in. Similarly for all of the "Font loaded..." lines...it now simply tells what fonts WEREN'T loaded. The Rose LN03 driver also has some problems associated with it that I haven't been able to track down yet. (1) When you only do the first page of a multiple page document, it still defines the font load for the entire document. This is not true for any other single page run (e.g., /s=2/n=1). (2) One PXL file (which contains a digitized version of our University seal) just simply refused to be defined. It's not too big and it can be used with K&S's VERTeX...DVI2LN3 just doesn't like it. The problem with magnifications (TeXhax V87 #40, from Eric Rountree) is related to the way in which TeX defines the magsteps. They are defined as: 0 1/2 1 2 3 4 5 1000 1095 1200 1440 1728 2074 2488 which results in PXL files (for the LN03) of: 0 1/2 1 2 3 4 5 1500 1643 1800 2160 2592 3111 3732 In other words, your problem arises from TeX, not DVI2LN3...except that DVI2LN3 sometime is off by one anyway (another fix I made). I realize this is a long entry, but hopefully Malcolm will post it anyway. I have had two separate inquiries through e-mail about such problems and seen others posted through TeXhax. I will send the two files (C source) to anyone who wishes to have them (please understand if there is some initial delay...my last offer was more than I expected, too). It is easier if you can contact me through SPAN, but as always I'm.... Ed Bell (no Dr. yet) Dept. of Physics & Astronomy University of Kansas BITnet: BELL@UKANVAX SPAN: KUPHSX::Bell (7.220) ------------------------------ From: To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Subject: C source for TeX? Where? Date: Mon, 25 May 87 18:43:24 EDT A friend of mine has a CCI Power 6 computer, which runs some weird flavor of UNIX. (V with many 4.2 features.) He has no PASCAL compiler, but does have a C compiler (obviously). What's the best (i.e. cheapest and fastest) way for him to get TeX. Buy a PASCAL compiler for which he has no other use? Or is there usable C code out there which he could port without too much trouble? If the latter, where? Sorry if this question is old hat. Just to show the depth of my ignorance, another question. He can still get the font files from Stanford, right? ------------------------------ Date: Thu 28 May 87 11:22:37-PDT From: Ted Shapin Subject: Two column style To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU I have modified TUGBOT.STY to switch between one and two columns in the middle of a page using the method outlined in the TeXbook and TUGboat v.6 #1 pg 30. I have produced the files TWO.STY and TWO.DOC. The latter contains examples of some of the less obvious features. Ted Shapin %%% Ted's files TUGBOT.STY and TWO.DOC are too long for distribution via %%% the digest. The complete file is available for FTPing by accessing %%% the file %%% [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]SHAPIN.TXH %%% The file has also been forwarded to TEX-L (a list server running %%% at TAMVM1.BITNET) for those on BITNET. %%% %%% Malcolm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 87 11:43:48 PDT From: mahoney@lbl-csa5.arpa (Jeannette Mahoney) Subject: Big screens To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Does anyone have a recommendation regarding big screens for viewing TeX from a Macintosh? Jeannette Mahoney mahoney@lbl %%% Last September at the Seybold publishing conference I saw Barry %%% Smith run TeXtures on the Radius display. Seemed to work fine. %%% Malcolm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 87 13:55 PST From: Subject: Bad LN03 output. To: texhax@score.stanford.edu X-Original-To: texhax@score.stanford.edu This may not be the right place to ask, but we are desperate. We are having problems with TeX output on our LN03. We are running TeX on a VAX using the DVI2LN3 driver. We got TeX, the driver, and the GF font files from Maria Code. We went through all the conversions to get the PXL files without too much trouble, and we can produce output on the LN03. The problem is that the characters are much too light, i.e. diagnols and thin parts of characters are either just 1 pixel wide or non-existant. This appears most dramatically with the 10 pt roman and roman-italic fonts in characters such as c, x, and e. However, the effect appears to a lesser extent in most other fonts (except the typewriter font). We examined the PXL files with the newffc program and the characters look fine (no lines are less than three pixels wide). This is our first experience with TeX. Has anyone else seen this problem and would anyone have any ideas on how it can be dealt with? Our impression is that we have done something wrong since there seems to be enough people out there using LN03s for output. Jonathan Eisenhamer UCLA Astronomy JON@UCLASTRO.BITNET BONNIE::JON (SPAN) (213) 206-8596 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 87 17:26:34 PDT From: kurdahi%poisson.usc.edu@usc-oberon.arpa (Fadi Kurdahi) To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Subject: Increasing TeX's Memory Capacity? Does anybody know how to hack TeX to increase its memory capacity? We are running ctex on SUN 3/160 system. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Fadi Kurdahi Dept. of EE-systems, USC ARPA: kurdahi%poisson.usc.edu@oberon.usc.edu UUCP ...sdcrdcf!oberon!poisson!kurdahi ------------------------------ Date: 28 May 87 12:20 -0800 From: "C.C.Z." To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Subject: TEX fonts for RICOH laser printers HEllo there, We have got here a TI2115 Postscript laser printer equipped with a RICOH "write-white" laser engine. We tried to use TEX on it but the output didn't look very good. Probably because we were using the default fonts for the 300dpi Canon engine. I am looking to contact somebody who has generated special fonts for RICOH engines to use with TEX. If anyone has done that please let me know and I could send out a blank tape (or TK50) to have the fonts shipped to us by pre-paid courier. Or we can find some other solution. (I am not in this list, so please send direct mail to me). Thank you for any kind of help, Christos, Pulp and Paper Centre U. of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, V6T-1W5 ChristosZ@ppc.ubc.CDN ...!ubc-vision!ppc.ubc.cdn!christosz ChristosZ%ppc.ubc.cdn@csnet-relay.ARPA Christos%UBC.Mailnet@MIT-Multics.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 87 10:13:49 Greenwich Mean Time To: From: Subject: LATEX.BUG In TeXhax Digest V87 #41 Leslie Lamport writes in reply to a bug report by Huber Partl: > The file LATEX.BUG includes the following entry > > 86. In verbatim mode, the sequences ?` and !` produce ligatures > instead of the correct characters. (Found by Gerard Huet. > Corrected 19 April 86.) > > 19 April 86 was over a year ago. You are obviously not aware of the difficulties people in europe have in getting TeX updates. Anonymous FTP is not possible from BITNET, and there is no BITNET server distributing LATEX.BUG (as far as I know). The only way to obtain files is either to get a new distribution tape or to ask someone in the United States to send them. We cannot do this every two weeks. Unless there is a better way of getting updates you'll find us reporting bugs after they have been corrected. Rainer Schoepf Institute of Physics University of Mainz D-6500 Mainz West Germany ------------------------------ Mail-From: BEETON created at 29-May-87 03:48:48 Date: Fri 29 May 87 03:48:48-PDT From: Barbara Beeton Subject: Re: Increasing TeX's Memory Capacity? To: kurdahi%poisson.usc.edu@OBERON.USC.EDU a web version of tex is very easily modified using the "change file" technique; i don't know how to modify a c version. however, there's been great general need to increase the memory values, especially if latex is being used heavily. memory values for various implementations of tex were published in tugboat 7#1, pp 68-69. the k&s vax/vms settings were intended to support latex in particular; i can vouch for the fact that these settings work on both vms and tops-20 (dec-20) systems with greatly reduced memory problems (although it's still possible to overstress them, the cause is usually some silly error rather than a real design problem). all segments of memory are set within the same block of code in the web source. it's probably worth looking in the c source for a similar initialization block, then using larger values as suggested by the settings published in the cited table. comments in the web source (published in "tex: the program") give valuable hints as to what parameters are related to or dependent on others, so that suitable relationships can be maintained. by the way, there have been some changes in some of the values as published (the standard dec-20 implementation has been enlarged, for example, to better accommodate latex), and there are certainly more implementations out there in the world than are shown in the chart. if authoritative sources will send me up-to-date information, i will update the chart for publication in the fall issue of tugboat. -- barbara beeton editor, tugboat (bnb@xx.lcs.mit.edu) ------------------------------ Date: 29-MAY-1987 13:41:00 From: ABBOTTP%UK.AC.ASTON.MAIL%UK.AC.RL.GB@ac.uk To: TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu Aston University - Electronic Mail Date: 29-May-1987 13:23 BST From: Peter Abbott ABBOTTP@UK.AC.ASTON.MAIL Dept: Computing Service Tel No: 021 359 5492 -direct Subject: Endash and emdash When using -- and --- with LaTeX and the standard Lplain package they produce an endash and an emdash according to the manuals. If I use my own version of Lplain which uses the fonts Times Roman in place of the amr fonts the endash and emdash are printed as input i.e as -- and ---. The dvips program (on my IBM PC) contains a table specifying the order of characters as the postscript order is different to the amr font order. Can anyone tell me how to tell TeX to accept the -- and --- and produce the correct code when using postscript fonts. Peter ------------------------------ %%% %%% subscriptions, address changes to: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% BITNET redistribution: TEX-L@TAMVM1.BITNET (list server) %%% %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest **************************