UKTeX V89 #24 Friday 30 June 1989 Acorn ACW lives :-) SBTeX Font selection in LaTeX previewer for DECWindows Refer to BIB conversion Spirits and Hacks Re: USERID's in Return Address for Aston Mail Server TeX for IBM RT 6150 TeX & LATeX for VAX VMS version 5 ... RE: UKTeX V89 #23 texserver return path Re: Graphics in TeX OzTeX 1.1 RE: Exabyte tape Syntax diagrams in Tex and Latex Beebes DVIJEP and Site Licence for PC-TeX Interpress Euro-TeX Digest --- Issue Editor Peter Abbott Latest TeXhax in the Archive is #57 Latest TeXmag in the Archive is V3N3 --------------------------------- Date: 23 Jun 89 16:23:54 bst From: G.Toal @ uk.ac.edinburgh Subject: Acorn ACW lives :-) Message-ID: <23 Jun 89 16:23:54 bst 050582@EMAS-A> Fraser Dickin was looking for a port of TeX to the Acorn Cambridge Workstation. I have one from *long* ago which he can have if he mails me. He may find it worth rebuilding from my change files and newer sources from the archives. Graham. --------------------------------- Received: from UKACRL by UK.AC.RL.IB (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 7973; Fri, 23 Jun 89 16:50:08 BS Received: from TWNMOE10.BITNET by UKACRL.BITNET (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 5011; Fri, 23 Jun 89 16:50:08 B Received: by TWNMOE10 (Mailer R2.02A) id 0497; Fri, 23 Jun 89 23:49:12 CST Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 23:48:33 CST From: Tsong-Min Wu Subject: SBTeX Hi, I hope someone will help me on this. I desperately need to get hold of a copy of SBTeX which runs on IBM-PC compatible machines. I have tried to get the file from the archive in ASTON. Unfortunately, due to some severe limitations on the gateway (?), I was not able to do it. I am on BITNET. So if you happen to be in BITNET, and happen to have SBTeX, could you please send me the code directly? I have ARC, ATOB, BTOA, UUDECODE, UUENCODE utilities, so you may ARC and UUENCODE (or BTOA) the code before sending. (You probably need to divide the code into several sections?) I REALLY appreciate you help! Tsong-Min Wu, Department of Economics, National Taiwan Univ. ntut019@twnmoe10.BITNET --------------------------------- Received: from UKACRL by UK.AC.RL.IB (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 0036; Fri, 23 Jun 89 17:35:31 BS Received: from DMZRZU5P.BITNET by UKACRL.BITNET (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 7093; Fri, 23 Jun 89 17:35:31 B Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 18:28 N From: "Rainer M. Schoepf" Subject: Font selection in LaTeX X-VMS-To: IN"info-tex@aston.ac.uk",SCHOEPF To whom it may concern! In recent TeXhax several people have asked how to change the font selection mechanism of LaTeX to be more flexible, e.g., to typeset the whole document in a sans serif typeface, with \bf switching to sans serif bold, \it or \em to sans serif italic, using the Euler fonts or DEK's concrete roman family, etc. We have implemented such a scheme which will be published in the forthcoming issue of TUGboat. This scheme is not limited to LaTeX, although we do not provide an interface to other macro packages yet. Characteristics: - Space requirements of about the same size as the original lfonts.tex - Takes about the same time to switch fonts as standard LaTeX - Preloaded and load-on-demand fonts are treated exactly the same way, even in math mode We are planning to make the relevant files available at the usual places (Clarkson, etc.) in the near future. Interested parties (i.e. server managers) should contact us and specify which format they prefer (BITNET file transfer, UNIX or VMS shell archives). The code is documented with the `doc' option developed at Mainz, (cf. TUGboat) which will be distributed via the same channels. Frank Mittelbach Rainer Sch\"opf Reply to: (Internet) or: (Bitnet/EARN) --------------------------------- From: Sebastian Rahtz Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 10:47:30 BST Message-Id: <28226.8906260947@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk> Subject: previewer for DECWindows a version of the X Windows previewer, xdvi, tailored for use with DEC Windows has been received, and installed in [tex-archive.drivers.xdvi.decwindows] There are two files called xdvi.part1 xdvi.part2 which are VMS ascii archives. Since these files are only of use to DEC sites, it seems easiest to leave them as archives for the present. Sebastian Rahtz pp archive working party --------------------------------- From: Sebastian Rahtz Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 10:50:02 BST Message-Id: <28238.8906260950@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk> Subject: Refer to BIB conversion Peter King's `ref2bib' conversion program from Unix refer databases to BibTeX format is installed in the latest version as [tex-archive.bibtex.utils]ref2bib [tex-archive.bibtex.utils]ref2bib.1 (Unix MAN page) The program is a shell script, and therefore only of use to Unix sites. But then who else but they would have refer format databases? Recommended over Rusty Wright's `r2bib' program. Sebastian Rahtz pp archive working part --------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 13:18:44 From: Mike Piff Subject: Spirits and Hacks Sebastian Rahtz says To say that TeX encourages hackery and obscure programming may be true, but that does not mean that it enforces it. I quite agree with the statement that TeX encourages hackery and obscurity. Indeed, if you want to do anything at all unusual, such as put an index at the end of a book, or shift solutions to problems into an appendix (!!) it would seem that trickery is the only way to do it. TeX does not provide any other means to achieve your goal. The most basic structures, such as loops, repeat, while, procedures with proper parameter passing, etc, are completely absent. OK, so Plain TeX provides a \loop structure which sometimes works, but even this fails when the body of the loop ends a group. Try writing a macro to descend from level $p$ of a nested enumeration to level $q$ using \loop, and you will see what I mean. Then take TeX' \if... structures. All very useful, but wouldn't it be more pleasant if the condition checked was always a boolean one? This does seem to be a convention adhered to in most other languages. By well-known mathematical theorems, anything which can be computed using an unstructured language can be computed using a structured one. As TeX is merely a program which takes the text of your document as input and produces the DVI file as output, it would seem that it should be possible to apply these results to typesetting. Although typesetting appears at first sight to be a different sort of job to calculating solutions of differential equations, mathematically they are one and the same. not just possible that he ENJOYED having TeX the way it is? Otherwise, I am sure he would have written LaTeX instead. I hope not. TeX is a typesetting language, LaTeX is a markup language implemented in TeX - life would be dismal if all we had was the facilities in Lamport's index I was not implying that Knuth would only have designed the facilities in Lamport's index, sorry if that was obscure! I was merely trying to say, not very well, I'm afraid, that the style of TeX might have been rather different if Knuth had designed it in a structured way. I thought that the style of LaTeX was more like what could have been expected, with its heavy use of \begin...\end blocks and its more consistent use of `procedures' to do things---Lamport's `commands'. I believe strongly that the structure of a language should be such as will suggest a method of solving any problem presented to it. I am aware from encounters with student projects that it is possible to write unstructured Pascal programs, but these are only produced by novices, and the style of their efforts usually improves rapidly with practice. Using TeX, I should imagine that the reverse happens. When we start, we are not too ambitious, and are fascinated and satisfied by the way TeX can arrange our words and mathematics on the page. But then, as we progress, we find that the only way to get something to work is to botch some \def\h@ck{\expandafter\csn@me\t@ken} rather than work with some procedure to process the next bit of text. If you work with macros, I guess that is the sort of mess you can expect. Does anybody out there know why Knuth chose to work with macros? If you read as far as page 120 of Fundamental Algorithms, The Art of Computer Programming Vol1, you will find a description of a hypothetical machine language called MIX. The description stops at page 160. All the computing examples are done in MIX. My book is dated 1973, reprinted 1978. Malcolm Clark writes mike piff tilts at a few windmills. Since I started receiving UKTeX on the IBM rather than the Prime, because of my meagre filestore allocation on the latter, I seem to be getting a lot of e e cummings type character code errors. Is this part of the Aston computer problems? Or perhaps someone is trying to fool the tiny brain of our 3083. Anyway, to get back to the point made, you will recall that the one who used to `tilt at windmills' was called Don. Poor Don was ridiculed for being outdated, and for thinking he was a knight, in an age long after the age of chivalry. Presumably, today Quixote would have been complaining about these newfangled `structured' ideas, and harking back to the days when you wrote everything in machine code---far more enjoyable, that, and you were a law unto yourself in those days. None of these formal restrictions on your freedom we impose now. Leave it to the knight's honour, and all will be well. Don't quite see the comparison, somehow. Does it have something to do with Sheffield's River Don? some of Knuth's solutions seem elegant in the extreme (and some just plain arcane). Perhaps they would not have needed to be quite so elegant or arcane in a better typesetting language. it comes as no real surprise to me that programming text is not quite the same as programming in modula-2 or pascal. Funnily enough, it comes as quite a surprise to me that programming text is ANY different to programming anything else, apart from the complications of not getting your text and instructions mixed up. See previous comments. i also agree with sebastian about mohammed ullah's spiritual error. the fact that Knuth changes catcodes does not actually mean that we should all go out an change them will-nilly. after all, Knuth knew what he was doing. So TeX suggested to two experts that the solution would be to change catcodes will-nilly, whoever he is? What lessons are to be drawn about TeX? And: somewhere, Knuth makes the comment that he saw TeX as a low level language, which he did not expect people to program in: he expected others to write macro packages which sat on top (like leslie lamport and mike spivak, inter alia). Fair enough, till you meet something which you are not allowed to do in LaTeX or AMSTeX, which is pretty soon with the latter! Then, you come back to exactly the same problem as Mohammed Ullah had, when he tried to do something which was perfectly natural to him, and thought would save him a lot of time. He was then faced with learning to program in TeX, and to get the windmill(?) to turn the way he wanted it to turn. The obvious solution failed, because he had not fully understood the way macros are defined. Is he supposed to belive that the TeX `tail' should wag his `dog' problem, and that it is not really on to do things the way he wants, because he might upset a rather fragile TeX spirit? And again, we are back to what this `spirit' is. Is it the spirit that someone else should write macro packages for you, and, if so, who? If the existing packages have shortcomings, do you just give up what you wanted to do or try to hack your way round those shortcomings, the way only TeX can? Suggestion for the spirit of TeX: If you can't do it in LaTeX or AMSTeX, then type it all in by hand. Otherwise, spend six months studying TeX and then hack it. And, boy, will the hacking be fun! Comments? Mike Piff. --------------------------------- Received: by doc.memex.co.uk (5.54/memex_12) id AA12457; Mon, 26 Jun 89 13:46:07 BST Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 13:46:07 BST From: peter@uk.co.memex (Peter Ilieve) Message-Id: <8906261246.AA12457@doc.memex.co.uk> Subject: Re: USERID's in Return Address for Aston Mail Server Steve Schwartz says he has trouble with the mail server, cured by putting the username in the return address in capitals. I have not had this problem, it seems quite happy to return things to me at "peter@uk.co.memex". I don't know about JANET, but RFC822, which specifies the form of Internet mail requires that case be preserved in the "local-part" or username part of an address. It seems some mailer between Aston and QMC is not doing him any favours. Peter Ilieve peter@memex.co.uk --------------------------------- From: Martin Ward Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 14:30:13 BST Message-Id: <19949.8906261330@easby.durham.ac.uk> Subject: TeX for IBM RT 6150 Does anyone have a version of TeX for the IBM PC-RT 6150? Martin (martin@uk.ac.dur.easby) --------------------------------- Date: 23-JUN-1989 16:09:28 GMT From: PJH1@UK.AC.YORK.VAXA Subject: TeX & LATeX for VAX VMS version 5 ... Peter, Can you tell me where / who can supply versions of TeX, LATeX and PostScript DVI interface for VMS version 5? Thanks, Peter Halls. --------------------------------- Date: 27-JUN-1989 10:28:39 GMT From: RJ_MARGOLIS@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX Subject: RE: UKTeX V89 #23 Sender: JANET"RJ_MARGOLIS@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX" Peter, I have been working on Klaus Thull's (excellent) PublicTeX stuff and now have an even 'larger' version with hash_size=3500. (We have an IMMENSE macro package for assignment booklet preparation.) I have also tackled on or two items on his 'wish list' including the inline code for memdiv/memmod, some improvement in the dump/undump speeds and commandline/configuration file configuring of directories etc. The change file has been updated to compile under Turbo Pascal 5.0. I am currently testing the stuff at the OU but anyone who wants a beta-test version can have it if they send 5 discs. (I am reluctant) to put a partly tested version in your archives). They will get executables etc but NOT printer drivers. Bob Margolis\ SNAIL MAIL: 12a, Wyndham Close, Yateley, Camberley, Surrey, GU17 7TT. (0252)871077. --------------------------------- Received: from brwa.inmos.co.uk by kestrel.Ukc.AC.UK with UUCP id aa16204; 27 Jun 89 9:41 BST Received: from yatton.inmos.co.uk by brwa.inmos.co.uk; Tue, 27 Jun 89 09:40:57 BST From: David Shepherd Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 09:41:01 BST Message-Id: <8308.8906270841@yatton.inmos.co.uk> Subject: texserver return path I can confirm that putting your user name in capitals in a texserver request gets a reply !!! Over the past 6 months I have very occasionally got replies to requests to texserver --- initially while I found the polarity of my mail address. Recently I have been assuming that with the current re-organisation it just wasn't working. But yesterday I tried >--- >DES@uk.co.inmos >DIRECTORY [PUBLIC] and got my first reply in several weeks ;-) ;-) Can someone *please* fix this as typing your user name in upper case is *not* a particularily obvious thing to do -- even for people who have experienced VMS. DAVID shepherd inmos ltd --------------------------------- Received: from cs.rochester.edu by NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK via NSFnet with SMTP id aa02152; 27 Jun 89 9:55 BST Received: from cedar.cs.rochester.edu by cayuga.cs.rochester.edu (5.59/m) id AA03798; Tue, 27 Jun 89 05:01:40 EDT Received: from loopback by cedar.cs.rochester.edu (3.2/m) id AA21361; Tue, 27 Jun 89 05:02:10 EDT Message-Id: <8906270902.AA21361@cedar.cs.rochester.edu> Subject: Re: Graphics in TeX Reply-To: ken@edu.rochester.cs In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 16 Jan 89 15:56:05 -0500. X-Uucp: ..!rochester!ken Internet: ken@cs.rochester.edu X-Snail: CS Dept., U of Roch., NY 14627. Voice: Ken! X-Phone: (716) 275-1448 (office) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 05:02:09 -0400 From: Ken Yap > Computer Graphics and TeX -- A Challenge > by > David F. Rogers > dfr@usna.mil I've refrained from commenting on this document for a while because I've not been doing anything with graphics recently. However today a user query prompted me to write this note. The user in question wanted to know if he could get a bigger version of TeX (huge TeX is standard here). 256k words is not enough, he said. Well you can compile a bigger version, said I, but what were you trying to do? Oh, just printing a graph generated with grap and awk. It uses lots of \circles*. Only 5500 lines, said he nonchalantly. TeX should be able to handle that shouldn't it? (For non-Unix users, grap is a x-y plot frontend and awk is a string processing language.) Which brings me to the point of this note. After death and taxes, it is certain that users will stretch your software to the limit. In every case that a user here has managed to get the out of memory message (except for runaway macros), graphics was involved, but especially x-y plots. It has always irked me that TeX has to waste all that memory and CPU time processing entities that have no textual content. The user in question could have turned his graph into a PostScript diagram and psfig would have happily digested it, no matter how rich the graph. Device dependence, I hear DFR protest. So what? The point is, we may establish a graphical macro standard, but it will be stillborn because nobody will be able to draw anything but toy graphics with it. Let's face it, don't try to make TeX do things it wasn't suited for. Let it position boxes on the page, instead of spending its time constructing lists of points whose positions are already specified anyway. With all due respect for Knuth's achievement, I genuinely believe the time has come to incorporate TeX typesetting in a more encompassing model of document layout. --------------------------------- Subject: OzTeX 1.1 Changes to version 1.0 ====================== - Added "Changes" to the Help menu. - Added support for MultiFinder. - Fixed bug that prevented OzTeX reading or writing files on other disks. - Fixed bug that caused a spectacular crash if OzTeX couldn't open the current printer resource file. - Certain fatal errors ("not enough memory" or "disk full") no longer leave files open. - Added a new "Include Laser Prep" check box option to the print dialogue. This simplifies the inclusion of a modified Laser Prep when printing a DVI file with \specials that refer to Mac-generated PostScript files. If this option is selected then OzTeX appends LaserPrep.ps to DVItoPS.ps. The option's default setting is specified in Oz.config. - The names of OzTeX's special folders and files are now defined in Oz.config rather than in STR resources. - When printing a DVI file, OzTeX's PostScript output starts with DVItoPS.ps. This and other PostScript files now begin with "%!" as recommended in Appendix C of Adobe's PostScript Language Reference Manual. - Added MENU resources to the OzTeX application so people can use a resource editor to change the Command-key equivalents to suit themselves. Note that I changed the location of Command-P, Command-T and Command-W. - Shift-Command-W will bypass the view dialogue box and display the most recently viewed DVI page (or page 1 if used first time). - You can now print or preview an OzTeX DVI file from the Finder. Use "Print" in the Finder's File menu to print a selected DVI file or "Open" (or double-click) to preview it. - Modified TEXTtoPS.ps so that 8-bit Macintosh characters print correctly. - Updated the OzTeX User Guide and completed the OzTeX System Guide. To update OzTeX from version 1.0 to 1.1 you need to replace the following files and folders: OzTeX, Oz.config, Build-OzTeX, Sources, TeX-sources, LaTeX-docs, Help-files and PS-files. --------------------------------- Received: from UKACRL by UK.AC.RL.IB (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 6367; Thu, 15 Jun 89 19:33:43 BS Received: from DTUZDV5A.BITNET (ZRKH001) by UKACRL.BITNET (Mailer X1.25) with BSMTP id 8150; Thu, 15 Jun 89 19:33:42 B Date: Thu, 15-JUN-1989 20:33:24.47 GMT+1 From: (Harald Koenig) Subject: RE: Exabyte tape Dear Peter, some days ago I got the exabyte tape back and tried to read it on our CONVEX C210 running CONVEX UNIX 7.0 (BSD 4.2) using a exabyte drive connected via a SCSI controller without success. I then read the tape on a uVAX running VMS 5.1 and transfered it to the CONVEX (no problem). Is this a known problem that exabyte tapes are not compatible between different vendors/operating systems/machine types/ controllers? +++Editor - The remainder of the message has been deleted since it does not affect the problem +++ Harald Koenig ZRKH001@DTUZDV5A.BITNET --------------------------------- Date: 28-JUN-1989 11:04:59 GMT From: SHW_X@UK.AC.LEICESTER Subject: Syntax diagrams in Tex and Latex In a past issue of TUGboat, vol:2, no:3, there was a listing of some macros to do syntax diagrams in TeX, "Charting Your Grammar With TeX" by Michael Plass. The macros went under the name SynChart.tex. Has anyone got these macros or similar ones which can be used in LaTeX or TeX. Thanks in advance. Hugo Korwaser JANET: SHW_X@UK.AC.LEICESTER.VAX BITNET: SHW_X@VAX.LEICESTER.AC.UK ARPA: SHW_X%VAX.LEICESTER.AC.UK@NSS.CS.UCL.AC.UK Telephone: +44 533 541475 Address: Femview Ltd 1 St Albans Road Leicester LE2 1GF England --------------------------------- Date: 29-JUN-1989 11:39:46 GMT From: CENSWM@UK.AC.HW.VAXB Subject: Beebes DVIJEP and Site Licence for PC-TeX I have two questions for TeX people: 1) I am attempting to compile and link Beebes DVIJEP on our VAX running VMS, I am getting a link error saying cannot find file ECHOALL.OBJ. I can see not trace of this file on the archive, has it been removed by mistake or am I doing something silly? 2) One of the departments here wants to purchase 10 copies of PC TeX, we wonder if there is a site licence deal? I can find nothing via CHEST, anyone out there with any info? Thanks Stuart Munn --------------------------------- From: Tim Bradshaw Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 11:27:46 GMT Message-Id: <12605.8906291127@hume.eusip.ed.ac.uk> Subject: Interpress X-Organisation: Centre for Speech Technology, University of Edinburgh We have a Xerox Laserprinter, which speaks interpress. Does anyone know of a dvi -> ip driver. It really would need to be in C. --Tim --- Tim Bradshaw | ARPA: tim%ed.eusip@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Speech Input project | UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!eusip!tim University of Edinburgh | JANET: tim@uk.ac.ed.eusip 80 South Bridge | Edinburgh EH1 1HN | Phone: +31 225 8883 x 265 Scotland | "Which follows the preceeding, and treats of matters that must be disclosed, in order to make the history more intelligible and distinct." --------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 JUN 89 12:33:00 BST From: CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB Subject: Euro-TeX Digest --- Issue 2 Sender: JANET"CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB" Reply-to: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) Originally-to: JANET%"UK-TeX@Aston" Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.4 (23-May-1989) =[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]==[Q]= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 15:11:04 CET From: Fritz Zaucker Subject: TeX for OS-9 Hi TeXer, does anybody know about a TeX implementation for the OS-9 operating system? Bye Fritz Zaucker =[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]==[A]= Date: Fri, 30 Jun 89 12:18:00 N From: Ulrich Mueller Subject: Re: TeX for OS-9 Hello TeX friends, At June 26th, Fritz Zaucker asked: > does anybody know about a TeX implementation for the OS-9 operating > system? We implemented Common TeX (V2.1) under OS-9 at Mainz, including a device driver for the atari SLM804 laser printer. We also ported the atari `dvist' previewer from TOS to OS-9. The initex and virtex programs are running under OS-9 V2.2 on an Eltec Eurocom 5. Best regards Ulrich M\"uller Inst. f. Kernphysik CERN Postfach 3980 Div. EP D-6500 Mainz CH-1211 Geneva 23 --------------------------------- !! !! Files of interest !! [tex-archive]000aston.readme [tex-archive]000directory.list !! [tex-archive]000directory_dates.list [tex-archive]000directory.size !! [tex-archive]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). !! !! FTP access site uk.ac.aston.tex !! username public !! password public !! !! I have the facility to copy this tape for anyone who sends the following !! 1 2400 tape with return labels AND RETURN postage. (2.50 pounds sterling !! for UK users, payable to `Aston University') Outside UK please ask me. !! UK users send 4.25 for two tapes or 6.60 for three tapes. !! 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. !! !! Exabyte tape drive with Video 8 cassettes. !! !! Same formats available as 1/2in tapes. We use the following tapes !! SONY Video 8 cassette P5 90MP, MAXCELL Video 8 cassette P5-90 !! TDK Video 8 cassette P5-90MPB !! Postage 35p UK (stamp please), 1 pound sterling Europe, other areas 2 pounds !! !! OzTeX - Send 10 UNFORMATTED disks with return postage. !! !! Replies/submissions to info-tex@uk.ac.aston please !! distribution changes to info-tex-request@uk.ac.aston please !! !! end of issue