Where does TeX live?
Gordon Vickers
gordon at prls.UUCP
Tue Jul 18 02:11:11 AEST 1989
How to get TeX ? I asked USENET readers this question about a year ago
and received the following useful responce :
> From mips!ames!uw-beaver!june.cs.washington.edu!mackay Mon Nov 7 17:37:25 1988
> Received: by mips.mips.com; Mon, 7 Nov 88 17:36:27 PST
> Received: Mon, 7 Nov 88 14:27:10 PST by ames.arc.nasa.gov (5.59/1.2)
> Received: from geops.geo.washington.edu by beaver.cs.washington.edu (5.59/6.12)
> id AA13435; Mon, 7 Nov 88 04:29:44 PST
> Received: by geops.geo.WASHINGTON.EDU (5.52.1/6.7)
> id AA28655; Mon, 7 Nov 88 04:29:21 PST
> Received: by june.cs.washington.edu (5.59/6.13+)
> id AA09975; Sun, 6 Nov 88 23:08:16 PST
> Date: Sun, 6 Nov 88 23:08:16 PST
> From: mips!june.cs.washington.edu!mackay (Pierre MacKay)
> Return-Path: <mackay>
> Message-Id: <8811070708.AA09975 at june.cs.washington.edu>
> To: prls!gordon
> In-Reply-To: Gordon Vickers's message of Thu, 27 Oct 88 15:49:48 pdt <8810272253.AA10469 at pyramid.pyramid.com>
> Subject: request ordering info for LaTeX
> Status: R
>
>
The base price for a full distribution of TeX, is $140.00 for 1/2 inch
9-track tapes, $165.00 for 4-track 1/4 inch cartridge tapes. This is
for prepaid orders, sent within the Continental U.S., by UPS, surface
routing, with delivery in eight days from dispatch. For shipping
charges to other sites and for rush orders, see the table below. We
can also accept purchase orders, with invoice after delivery, but
there will be an extra charge of $10.00, owing to the invoice
processing charges we incur. We are required to have written
confirmation of orders (no phone confirmation) and we do not have fax
facilities.
Direct payment by wire can be made to
UNIVERSITY of WASHINGTON Account # 002-138-0641
For: Northwest Computing Support Center, # 14-0449
in payment of UW INVOICE # -------------
Rainier Bank -- University Branch
1300 - NE 45th Street
Seattle, WA 98105 U.S.A.
Payment by wire also involves an extra charge of $10.00 to cover bank
handling charges, but you do not need to pay the $10.00 invoice charge
if we do not have to send an invoice.
TOTAL costs, including shipping charges are:
----- (add $10.00 for invoicing or payment by wire)
|-------|-------|--------|--------|---------------|-----------|
| Local | Local | Canada | Canada | Overseas | Overseas |
| UPS | DHL | UPS* |Airborne|Air Parcel Post|DHL Courier|
|-------|-------|--------|--------|---------------|-----------|
magtape |$140.00|$148.00|$140.00 |$160.00 | $160.00 | $170.00 |
|-------|-------|--------|--------|---------------|-----------|
cartridge|$165.00|$173.00|$165.00 |$185.00 | $185.00 | $195.00 |
|-------|-------|--------|--------|---------------|-----------|
*NOTE: UPS shipments to Canada only available to Province of
Ontario and to metropolitan areas of Montreal, Vancouver
and Victoria.
Checks should be in U.S. dollars, payable to The University of Washington,
(IRS Tax number 91-6001537) and sent to:
The Director
Northwest Computer Support Group, DW-10
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington 98195
The normal distribution is a tar tape, blocked 20, 1600 bpi, on an
industry standard 2400 foot half-inch reel. If you need 1/4 inch
streamer cartridges, be sure to tell us. The 1/4 inch physical format
is QIC-11, 8000 bpi, 4-track serpentine recording. We can send QIC-24
cartridges, but there will be a delay, since we have to make the
master off campus and send it away for copying. QIC-24 orders may be
slightly delayed while we get a new distribution master copied. We
cannot write nine-track on cartridges, nor can we write TK50
cartridges for the DEC Microvax. SystemV tapes can be written in cpio
format, blocked 5120 bytes, ASCII headers, but we prefer not to, since
cpio format is extremely slow and wastes a great deal of tape on
inter-record gaps. Again, please specify this format if you want it,
and make sure which of the several QIC formats you can read. Most
systems can read both QIC-11 and QIC-24, but very old systems can read
only QIC-11, and some 3Bx s will only read QIC-24.
The original organization of the distribution reflected the use of
pascal for all compilations of TeX, TeXware, BibTeX, METAFONT and
MFware. This has now been supplemented by a more convenient and more
generally portable WEB-to-C compilation for TeX, TeXware, BibTeX,
METAFONT and MFware (except for GFtoDVI, which is currently being
rewritten by Donald Knuth). LaTeX and AMSTeX are macro packages
processed by TeX, and do not require any further compilation.
Current versions of standard programs in the distribution:
(in the ./tex82 path)
TeX 2.93 (implying the use of the new cm fonts.)
(plain.tex version 2.92)
LaTeX 2.09 (release of 26 April, 1988)
(also SliTeX 2.09)
tangle 2.8
weave 2.9
dvitype 2.9
pltotf 2.3
tftopl 2.5
metafont 1.5
gftodvi 1.7
gftopk 1.4
gftype 2.2
pktype 2.2
pktogf 1.0
bibtex 0.99c
mft 0.3 (a formatting program for metafont source files.)
also:
(chtopx gftopxl pktopx pxtoch pxtopk --- but the use of
these obsolescent pxl-related programs is discouraged)
Various foreign language utilities, German, Greek, Portuguese, Swedish, and a
first run of TeX-XeT for Semitic languages. Lots of other
goodies of a generally similar nature.
Fonts in tfm (TeX Font Metric) format. This is the format that describes
fonts for TeX. It includes all useful information about font
characters except what they will actually look like on paper.
TFM format is size independent and device independent. and can
therefore be used on any system that runs TeX. It will give
you a valid DVI (DeVice Independent) output file, but will
be of no use to give you readable hard (or CRT) copy output.
Fonts in mf source format. The full Computer Modern as released from Stanford.
Utility fonts for character proofs etc. (not made with cmbase.mf),
LaTeX and SliTeX fonts are also supplied in mf source format.
Fonts in PK format. This format produces characters that can actually
be printed on paper. It is very device-dependent, and can
therefore only be supplied for a small range of common output
devices. All the standard shapes and sizes as declared in
plain.tex, lfonts.tex, sfonts.tex and webmac.tex are here, in 118,
200, 240, and 300 PK(dpi) series. The 300dpi fonts are sent out in
write-black and write-white flavors (CanonCX and Ricoh 4080).
No provision is made for the global magnifications of LaTeX
style files (such as bk11.sty). If your site needs these or
similar magnifications you will have to run METAFONT to get them.
The PK files for the principal LaTeX and SliTeX alphanumeric and
symbol fonts are in a separate list. The Euler fonts (includes
Fraktur) come in PK format only. (If you want [euler].mf source files,
you should get in touch with the American Mathematical Society,
which will make these available under license.) All these fonts
may be converted to gf format (the format produced by the METAFONT
program) by using the MFware program pktogf.
Old METAFONT fonts. AMS fonts-- Cyrillc, and special symbols (created with
old METAFONT-in-SAIL). Converted to PK format. There is no
use in the mf files for these unless you are running a DEC10 or
DEC20 with a SAIL compiler.
Fonts in pxl format. No more. All the best drivers use gf or pk these days.
If you really need pxl, you will have to compile and run pktopx.
NOTE. for those who wish to go on using am series fonts, the files
am_plain.tex, am_lfonts.tex and am_webmac.tex are provided.
Drivers for dvi output.
imagen(2 styles), qms(2 styles), LaserWriter (PostScript),
LN03. These all produce intermediate files of one sort
or another. Get in touch with Nelson Beebe Beebe at CS.UTAH.EDU
if you need an HP LaserJet driver.
Symbolics LGP, Ln01, Versatec. (These are all obsolescent, and
are no longer maintained.)
Compilation is now based entirely on Web-to-C, but the pascal compilation
files have been left on the tape in compressed format (not updated). After
about 6 months, they will be removed, unless there is some urgent
reason for keeping them.
Here is a partial list of successful compilations under Web-to-C:
Sun-2, SunOS 3.2 (register variables may be ok here)
Sun-3, SunOS 3.2 (no register variables), SunOS 3.4, 3.5, 4.0FCS
Sun-4, SunOS 3.2-4, using cc -O, and SunOS 4.0FCS with cc -O4.
Sun-386i under Sunos 4.0
Sun-3(280) using gcc 1-29. with optimization on all but tex4.c
Sequent Balance, Dynix 2.1.1.
Vaxen running 4.2, 4.3BSD, and Ultrix, using cc.
Convex: Everything works, but -O breaks web2c itself, so don't use it
when compiling that program; it's ok for TeX etc.
Amdahl running UTS.
Apollo, SR9.7 and SR10.0 (beta).
Ridge 32 running ROS 3.5 and C compiler version 2.1B
UNIXpc (aka 3b1 or PC7300) running System V version 3.51.
MIPS R/1000, compiler version 1.21
Masscomp (not sure of model designation)
Iris workstation.
Celerity C1260, UNIX version 3.4.78, without -O.
RT/PC running AOS(formerly ACIS)4.3; typedef unsigned char schar
Still at the hacker stage but workable
Interactive 386/ix Vers. 1.0.5, (System V Rel. 3.1) minor problems
owing to a bug in the C compiler. (Special patch available)
Tahoe Some problems with weave.
ELXSI
Encore
The version of TeX produced through WEB-to-C is smaller, faster,
tastier and altogether superior to the pascal compilation. It has the
additional advantage that if your site needs a TeX with a truly
gigantic capacity for boxes and macros, you can compile it under C.
(UC Berkeley pascal puts a 16-bit limitation on array indices, which
prevents this expansion.) It is genuine TeX, and passes the nefarious
trip test in all respects. The above remarks are true for metafont,
texware, BibTeX and mfware, and should ultimately be true for all
programs written in the original form of WEB. C compilation has been
successful on a wide range of Unix machines, and has become the only
system fully supported in the UnixTeX distribution, but it is also
likely to smoke out bugs in some C compilers on new systems just as
the pascal compilation did for many versions of pascal.
Since TeX is free public-domain software, just about everything that
can be sent out in source form is included on the tape. There are no
licensing restrictions, and only minor copyright restrictions as noted
in the affected files.
The site distributions of TeX are coordinated through the TeX
Users Group (TUG) as part of the services of TUG to its members.
We urge all users of TeX and METAFONT to join the TeX Users Group,
to support and benefit from its activities---particularly the
journal, TUGboat.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Call or write to: The TeX Users Group %
% P. O. Box 9506 % Pierre A. MacKay
% Providence, RI % TUG Site Coordinator for
% 02940-9506 % Unix-flavored TeX
% (401) 751-7760 %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
========================================================================
I have nothing to do with TeX so please don't ask me anything about
the above, I'm simply reprinting the info. BTW, I did find that the
single sheet of installation instructions to be wholly inadequate, in
fact I still don't have TeX installed. After loading the tape and folling
the instructions, the distribution managed to eat up a little more than
30 Meg bytes of disk. If I knew a bit more about what I was doing, I
could probably delete several Meg of fonts.
Gordon Vickers 408/991-5370 (Sunnyvale,Ca); {mips|pyramid|philabs}!prls!gordon
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