UKTeX V88 #18 Friday 17 June 1988 Re: UKTeX V88 #17 three columns, and DosTeX HP printers. UKTeX 88#17 -- AMSFonts, PicTeX, Atari ST TUG Re: TeX on ATARI ST ? Compress utilities Incompatible file formats Getting help on the TeX Archive server at Aston. TeX on Apollo Triple columns Latex DOSTeX --------------------------------- Editor Peter Abbott Due to network problems here at Aston and elsewhere at one of the switching centres the last issue was delayed (for some users) and duplicated (or triplicated for some). I am due to be out of the office from June 27 to July 11 so if next weeks isssue has not arrived by Wednesday of the following week I suggest you look in the archive. Issue 20 will be despatched as soon as possible on my return. Yesterday (June 16) I received a tape with the following TeX 2.9, LaTeX 2.09, Metafont 1.3, UNIX 4.2/3bsd: VAX (Ultrix?), Sun 2/3, Pyramid, Sequent; SYs V: 3B2. Tape format tar 1600bpi. I think that this will replace most (if not all of the PAVEL group). I hope to have it available in the near future. Updated group Directory [PUBLIC.SCORE.LATEX] KWOK.TXH ROKICKI.TXH SPRINGER.TXH TAJ.TXH WUJASTYK.TXH Dave Love from Daresbury has applied mods to springer.txh to correct the long line problem. Updated group Directory [PUBLIC.LATEXSTYLE] 00DIRECTORY. 00INDEX. 00README. AAAI-INSTRUCTIONS.TEX AAAI-NAMED.BST AAAI-NAMED.OST AAAI.STY ACM.BST ALBUM.SHAR ALLTT.STY APALIKE.BST APALIKE.DOC APALIKE.STY BSF.DOC BSF.STY CAPTCONT.STY DAYOFWEEK.TEX DOCSTY.SHAR DOUBLESPACE.STY DROP.DOC DROP.STY DVIDOC.SHAR2 EPIC.SHAR1 ESPO.STY GERMAN.STY IEEETR.BST LATEX.BUG LATEX.DIF LGRAPH.SHAR MAN10.STY MAN11.STY MAN12.STY MANUAL.README MANUAL.STY MEMO.STY NATSCI.BST NATSCI.STY NEWALPHA.BST NL.STY RSCSENCODE.SHAR SCHEDULE.DOC SCHEDULE.STY SHAPIRO-MAKEBST.SH SHOWLABELS.STY SIAM.BST SIAM.STY SIAM10.STY SIAM11.STY SIAM12.STY SVMA.STY SVMA.TEX SVSA.STY TEXINDEX.SHAR UCT10.DOC UCT11.DOC UCT12.DOC UCTHESIS.DOC UUENCODE.SHAR WSLTEX.SHAR Total of 59 files. Latest TeXhax in the Archive is #56 Latest TeXmag in the Archive is V2N4 --------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 18:05:35 GMT From: Sebastian Rahtz To: ABBOTTP@uk.ac.aston Subject: Re: UKTeX V88 #17 re: PicTeX PicTeX distribution does NOT include the manual, nor is it supposed to. The author has given it to TUG to sell, and so far as I am aware there is no chance of getting a free source of it. If there is, I'd be glad to know! re: complete TeX setups every so often someone asks if anyone can give them a complete TeX for a Sun, Vax or whatever. Can I suggest that not only should all TeXxies subscribe to Tugboat (as Malcolm Clark says) but that they should buy a complete new distribution if they are starting afresh? Buying a Unix TeX from Washington will set you back 50 or 100 pounds, but I am sure it is worth it to get a new, complete set of files as a basis for future updating and enhancing from Aston. For instance, the chap who wants the works for a Sun 3/50 is welcome to a copy of my tapes dated last summer. But that is TeX 2.2, and Knuth is now up to 2.92! Spring-clean every so often, I say. --------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 18:19:28 GMT From: Sebastian Rahtz To: info-tex@uk.ac.aston.mail Subject: three columns, and DosTeX a) three-columns: they are not on this machine, but there are macros in the reference cards for Gnuemacs that produce 3 column output. It COULD be worth looking at them if you have Gnu b) I FTPed DosTeX to our IBM mainframe, Kermitted onto my PC, and followed the process of deBOOing, and unarcing. In the process, DosTeX's INSTALL said files were corrupt, and the .EXE files it eventually created did not run. Before I go through the whole process again (aargh), can someone assure me that they have followed a similar path and got working executables out the other end? sebastian rahtz --------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 19:36:08 BST From: TFEB1@UK.AC.CAM.PHX To: abbottp@UK.AC.ASTON.MAIL Subject: HP printers. Message-ID: <9EA5DC71D9E66C10@UK.AC.CAM.PHX> I have been offered a very cheap laser printer which claims to emulate a Hewlett-Packard Laserjet I (note *not* a II). Does anyone know anything about drivers for this for either a PC or as C source for Unix V.2? Incidentally, the people who are selling this are Morgan Computers , London, and it is under 1k, new. ---Tim Bradshaw (tfeb1@uk.ac.cam.phx). --------------------------------- Received: from seed.ams.com by NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK via Satnet with SMTP id aa03110; 11 Jun 88 17:31 BST Date: Sat 11 Jun 88 12:34:58-EDT From: b beeton Subject: UKTeX 88#17 -- AMSFonts, PicTeX, Atari ST To: info-tex Message-ID: <12405621640.19.BNB@SEED.AMS.COM> I have some information on these three inquiries in the last issue of UKTeX. The AMSFonts that were generated with MF79 -- cyrillic and the extra math symbols -- were produced on a DEC20, which has no such requirements as fixed-length, 512-byte files. Since other systems do have such requirements, however, the Math Society's next release of the fonts (expected by midsummer) will be in 512-byte fixed-length format. Some additional fonts will be included in the new release, in particular the Euler script and cursive fonts, in both normal and bold weights; this will complete the Euler family as designed by Hermann Zapf. A volunteer undertook re-implementation of the cyrillic in new MF last fall; however, we've had no recent progress reports, only a second-hand report that the job has turned out to be more work than expected (not surprising -- a rule of thumb once quoted by Knuth is that any task, given a reasonable estimate of how long it will take, will actually require +1 unit, scaled up by one order of magnitude; thus a job estimated to take 2 hours will turn out to take 3 weeks. I've never had any reason to contradict this ...). PiCtex has been offered for distribution to TUG. The manual is now at the printer. An article on PicTeX by the author, Michael Wichura, is scheduled to appear in the upcoming issue of TUGboat, which in turn is scheduled to appear early in August. The Kettler Atari ST implementation of TeX was first described in TUGboat 7#3, p. 164, with an update in 8#3, p. 304 (where an Atari implementation of MF was also announced). The full address is Kettler EDV-Consulting P O Box 1345, D-8172 Lenggries Federal Republic of Germany phone +49 8042 8081 Another ST implementation was announced in TUGboat 8#1, p 46, from tools GmbH Bonn Kaiserstrasse 48 5300 Bonn Federal Republic of Germany The contact there is Edgar Fu\ss; a MF implementation was also mentioned. By the way, I concur with Malcolm Clark's comment that any serious user of TeX or Latex should read TUGboat (and join TUG, of course). However, as editor of that publication, I could easily be accused of bias ... Seriously, though, among the regular columns are announcements of new TeX-related software, site reports from the implementors and distributors of various TeX and MF implementations, a substantial list of what output device drivers are available and from whom, mode_def settings recommended for various print engines, the current list of style files in the LaTeX style repository, an annual list of known hyphenation exceptions, and a calendar of events related to document processing in general as well as to TeX. Other features vary, but include articles on fonts, formatting, software, macros (plain and LaTeX), queries and responses, and the use of TeX in production environments (as opposed to use directly by authors). At US$40 per year outside North America (including air mail shipment), this isn't really expensive -- the three 1987 issues contained nearly 300 pages of feature material. TUG now has an electronic address: TUG@Math.AMS.com on the Internet (sorry I don't know how to modify this address to be reached from Janet, but maybe the editor does?). -- Barbara Beeton American Math Society, et al. --------------------------------- From: Luke Whitaker Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 10:30:05 +0100 Message-Id: <8806130930.AA04619@uk.ac.city.cs> To: info-tex@uk.ac.aston Subject: TUG Can someone tell me how I subscribe to TUG and also give me some idea of what TUG does? Thanks, Luke Whitaker. --------------------------------- Date: 13 Jun 88 11:54:16 bst From: K.Bowler @ uk.ac.edinburgh Subject: Re: TeX on ATARI ST ? To: G.Toal @ uk.ac.edinburgh, info-tex@uk.ac.aston.mail Message-ID: <13 Jun 88 11:54:16 bst 330912@EMAS-C> In-reply-to: Your message <11 Jun 88 09:58:04 bst 050557@EMAS-A> I also have an interest in getting TeX for the ST. I have seen two versions of TeX running on STs at the University of Amsterdam, one of which was the version supplied by Kettler EDV-Consulting of Lenggries (yes- it really is in West Germany), and the other was supplied by another W. German software house in Bonn (I think) called Tools Gmbh , tel. no. 228-230088. I have a written quote from Kettler which says that ST-TeX costs US$225 a dot-matrix driver US$110, a LaserJet driver US$195 and Metafont-ST also US$195, with various combined packages available at reduced prices. Unfortunately, on phoning last week for further info, I was told that they (Kettler) had ceased trading, although their products may continue to be marketed. My colleagues in Amsterdam were on the whole very positive about both packages, with some preference at that stage for the Kettler version. I have not managed to get any response out of Tools Gmbh, so if anyone else has better luck, please let me know. Ken Bowler, Physics Department, University of Edinburgh (tel:031-667-1081 ext 2847) k.bowler@uk.ac.edinburgh --------------------------------- Date: 14 Jun 1988 16:41:06-WET To: INFO-TEX@ASTON.MAIL Subject: Compress utilities From: alien --text follows this line-- I've tried playing with the VMS versions of the Lempel-Ziv compress software from the archive, so that I can implement the /COMPRESS, /DECOMPRESS and /ENCODE file transfer options for the Aston mail-server. But COMPRESS falls over on my VAX with the singularly unhelpful ``SYSTEM-F-FATAL, fatal error''. Am I using an old/untested version?? And does anyone have any experience with these programs? The compressed files need to be readable on Unix, etc as well as VMS. Adrian F. Clark JANET: alien@uk.ac.essex.ese ARPA: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@cs.ucl.ac.uk BITNET: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@ac.uk Smail: Dept. of Electronic Systems Engineering, Essex University, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex C04 3SQ, U. K. Phone: (+44) 206-872432 (direct) --------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 11:45:39 BST From: Dr R M Damerell (RHBNC) To: abbottp@uk.ac.aston cc: damerell@uk.ac.ucl.cs.nss Subject: Incompatible file formats This problem has been a B***%$! nuisance for several years. The way it looks to me is: 1. There are lots of useful programs about, written originally for Unix, and VMS lovers want to run them on VMS. 2. Most of these are written in C. 3. There seems to be some "feature" of the VMS C compiler which makes it very difficult to read or write files in any other format but Stream-LF. 4. As far as I know there is no VMS language (except C), command, system service, library routine or utility that can handle these files properly. So, for example, all the VMS change files on our (Stanford) software tape (which I admit is out of date) are designed to read & write font files and DVI files in fixed length 512 byte records, while a driver for the LN03 (from another source) requires PXL files in Stream-LF. (Lets be thankful for small mercies: so far, I dont think anybody has been tampering with DVI file format ***PLEASE*** dont anybody start!) The main difficulty in reading Stream-LF files in VMS seems to be that these typically have record lengths of tens of K and most VMS software has hard-wired upper limits. Sam Nelson said this is "a major advantage of the Unix concept of files as undifferentiated byte stream". I dont altogether agree, I prefer to regard it as a defect of VMS file-handling. Record-structured files are extremely useful in some situations. If anybody knows a **reliable** way for VMS people to convert files from Stream-LF to other formats, please could you tell us? Mark --------------------------------- Date: 15 Jun 1988 12:49:32-WET To: info-tex@aston.mail Subject: Getting help on the TeX Archive server at Aston. From: alien --text follows this line-- I am pleased to see that quite a few people have tried to get the help for the mail-server for the TeX archive at Aston. Unfortunately, the description of how to use it in UKTeX #17 wasn't right, so the server has been rejecting everyone's messages. Here's the right recipe. The mail message should be structured as follows: ignored-text ---ignored-text return-address (from Aston to you) HELP ignored-text The bits which say `ignored-text' mean that any text is acceptable. (There's a bit of ignored-text before the `---' separator since some mailers insist in including (parts of) the mail message header in the message body.) The `---' separator must be the first three non-blank characters on a line; the rest of the line is ignored. The next non-blank line, following the `---' separator, should contain your address from Aston (see below). And the next non-blank line should contain the single word `HELP', in any cAsE. The rest of the message is ignored. I'm afraid that, in the time available and using the hack approach I came up with, I couldn't make the mail-server extract return addresses from the mail header. So you have to type it in the message. You should give it in the usual `user@site' format. I go to great lengths to preserve the case of the sender's username; hence, any VMS sites who use the mail-server must type their usernames in UPPER case (this is the only time where case conversion doesn't take place under VMS!). Unix sites should probably use lower case (I certainly do). The mail-server can search through files for given strings (*not* regexps), send directory listings and, of course, send files. The files can be packed into `shar' or DCL archives (by analogy). There are also switches for compressing, decompressing or encoding (BtoA-ing) files before sending but THESE OPTIONS ARE NOT IMPLEMENTED YET ('cos I can't make the various programs work under VMS). (When they *do* work, it should solve all the `incompatible file attribute' problems.) If people *still* can't get the help message (and the mail-server is currently running every 15 minutes or so), they should contact me a.s.a.p. Adrian F. Clark JANET: alien@uk.ac.essex.ese ARPA: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@cs.ucl.ac.uk BITNET: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@ac.uk Smail: Dept. of Electronic Systems Engineering, Essex University, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex C04 3SQ, U. K. Phone: (+44) 206-872432 (direct) --------------------------------- DATE: 15 Jun 88 10:21:25 BST FROM: w.w.bell @ uk.ac.aberdeen TO: abbottp @ uk.ac.aston MESSAGE-ID: <15.Jun.88_10-21-04_w.w.bell@uk.ac.aberdeen> SUBJECT: TEX This is to confirm our recent phone conversation and to advise you of our interest in TEX and its implementation on APOLLO workstations. Looking forward to hearing from you, Wallace Bell. +++Editor - Would SUN users please contact Wallace and tell him how to proceed. +++ --------------------------------- Message-id: <2658> Date: THU, 16-JUN-88 16:06 N From: Reply-To: (alternate reply) Subject: Triple columns To: X-Original-To: info-tex@aston.ac.uk, FISICA Peter, in the last UkTex somebody was asking for three column output. Here it is. Max ---------------------- cut here ------------------------------------- % ******************************************************** % This is the triple column format. * % Tomas Rokicki, 29 September 1984 * % ******************************************************** \special{landscape} \newdimen\fullhsize\newdimen\play\newdimen\hmargins\newdimen\vmargins \def\newmargins#1#2{\hmargins=#1\vmargins=#2 \play=11truein\advance\play by-2\hmargins\global\fullhsize=\play \advance\play by-4\hmargins\divide\play by3\global\hsize=\play \play=8truein\advance\play by-2\vmargins\global\vsize=\play \play=-1truein\advance\play by\hmargins\global\hoffset=\play \play=-1truein\advance\play by\vmargins\global\voffset=\play} \newmargins{.25truein}{.25truein} \def\fullline{\hbox to\fullhsize} \let\lmr=L \newbox\leftcolumn\newbox\middlecolumn \output={\if L\lmr \global\setbox\leftcolumn=\columnbox\global\let\lmr=M \else\if M\lmr \global\setbox\middlecolumn=\columnbox\global\let\lmr=R \else\tripleformat\global\let\lmr=L\fi\fi \ifnum\outputpenalty>-20000 \else\dosupereject\fi} \def\tripleformat{\shipout\vbox{\makeheadline \fullline{\box\leftcolumn\hfil\box\middlecolumn\hfil\columnbox}} \advancepageno} \def\columnbox{\leftline{\pagebody}} \tolerance=1600 --------------------------------- Date: 16 Jun 1988 17:18:41-WET DST To: abbottp@aston.mail Subject: Latex From: se314 Hello, I wonder if you could help... We have recently been introduced to Latex at the City University. In order to obain draft copies of output, I have down loaded the DVI -> Printronix converted for Unix C. When this run, because it is unable to find some fonts, it chooses the 'nearest neighbour'. Unfortunatley, these fonts as not ideal, with the letters being printed very close together. I was wonder if you have any suggestions of how to get round this problem - or indeed do the required fonts exist ? Thanks very much for your time, Billy Gibson, Computer Unit, City University. P.S. Here are the error messages 'dviprx' gives: Font file [cmbx10 [mag 1250]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmbx10.240pk [mag 1200]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmbx10 [mag 868]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmbx10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmbx10 [mag 723]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmbx10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmtt10 [mag 603]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmtt10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmbx10 [mag 603]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmbx10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmti10 [mag 603]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmti10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] Font file [cmr10 [mag 603]] could not be opened. ---using nearest neighbor [/usr/lib/tex/fonts/cmr10.200pk [mag 1000]] instead. Current TeX page counters: [0] --------------------------------- Date: FRI, 17 JUN 88 09:39:13 GMT From: C20222 @ UK.AC.PLYMOUTH.PRIME-B To: info-tex @ UK.AC.ASTON Sent by: Jon Warbrick Plymouth Polytechnic Computing Service. I've spent the last week playing with DosTeX on an IBM lookalike. Can I use this message to thank Maria from PCL for all of her help in sending me the files that were initally missing from the Aston archive. My invistigations have revealed two things: 1) DosTeX realy *DOES* need 640K of memory to run. That means no utilities, no device drivers, no extra files or buffers, nothing! As a result I have had to provide customised CONFING.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file for use when running DosTeX. That's something of a problem, since I need the normal ones to run almost everything else. 2) I can't get the enviroment variable TEXINPUTS to work. If I don't set it then TeX looks in the current directory for everything, and if I do then TeX seems to look *ONLY* in the directory that it points at. Surely this can't be correct. Jon. --------------------------------- !! !! !! Replies/submissions to info-tex@uk.ac.aston please !! distribution changes to info-tex-request@uk.ac.aston please !! !! end of issue