UKTeX Digest Friday, 19 Nov 1993 Volume 93 : Issue 36 ``The UKTeX Digest is brought to you as a free, unfunded and voluntary service of the UK TeX Users Group and the UK TeX Archive.'' Today's Topics: {Questions & Answers}: HP Laserjet 4M emTeX and MS Windows3.1 Re: emTeX and MS Windows3.1 re: emTeX and MS Windows versions of emTeX Re: versions of emTeX Drivers for LaserJet IV TeX and LaTeX for PC Re: Drivers for LaserJet IV Equivalent to \kill command in math mode? LaTeX bibliography styles Re: LaTeX bibliography styles {Announcements}: Report on the inaugural meeting of the NTS group, September 1993 Administrivia: Moderators: Peter Abbott (Aston University) and David Osborne (University of Nottingham) Contributions: UKTeX@uk.ac.tex Administration, subscription and unsubscription requests: UKTeX-request@uk.ac.tex ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 11:39:06 +0000 From: P.Abbott@uk.ac.aston Subject: HP Laserjet 4M Does anyone have one of these printers or does anyone know how they perform. This printer is being considered for installation in depts (Finance Registry) for use with Admin systems (PCs Macs and UNIX) Any comments gratefully received. Peter ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1993 15:22:52 From: Mike Piff Subject: emTeX and MS Windows3.1 Has anyone tried running the emTeX previewer in a Microsoft window, ie, as an MSDOS application? If it is run full screen, it works perfectly. However, when you switch to a window (Alt-enter, say) and try shrinking with - and magnifying with +, the colour display breaks up. Is this something that would be easy to fix? The obvious advantage of running TeX from Windows is that it supports multitasking, so you can get on with something else whilst LaTeXing and printing. (Version tested dviscr beta test 8.) Mike Piff ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 16:55:57 +0000 From: spqr@uk.ac.tex.ftp Subject: Re: emTeX and MS Windows3.1 I'd recommend you use Dviwin insead of dviscr, if you are getting into Windows TeXing. Its very good, *except* that it does not support virtual fonts. I dont see how dviscr could ever work properly other than full screen. Windows is not at all a good multi-tasking environment! It is a pig[1] On the same hardware you can get far better multi-tasking performance by installing a real operating system. Choose from NT (costs ya), OS/2 (cheap, and d@mned good value), or Linux (free, but need some confidence at hacking). Excellent TeXes for all of these, of course, and previewers. [1] substiute nastier words as desired. Sebastian ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1993 17:15:33 From: Mike Piff Subject: re: emTeX and MS Windows I seem to have cured the problem myself. You just switch dviscr into its VGA monochrome mode with the switch /oa18 and the colours no longer break up. Mike Piff ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 15:23:00 +0000 From: Pete Digby Subject: versions of emTeX I wonder if I could trouble the Archivists and/or Eberhart Mattes for a reaction to the following. A few years ago I downloaded from the archive a complete copy of emTeX, which I have found to be excellent; also I am aware that a later version, plus BONUS disks etc., has been installed since then. I am considering downloading that version in the near future; however I wondered if there was an even newer version in the pipeline, so that I would be better to wait for that. Also I seem to recall mention in the Newsletter of a new LaTeX, and wonder whether that might/should affect my decision. I would be grateful for any guidance, Pete Digby (DIGBY @ UK.AC.AFRC.RESA, although this address will be subject to change soon) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 22:15:21 +0000 From: spqr@uk.ac.tex.ftp Subject: Re: versions of emTeX > I wonder if I could trouble the Archivists and/or Eberhart Mattes > for a reaction to the following. A few years ago I downloaded > from the archive a complete copy of emTeX, which I have found to > be excellent; also I am aware that a later version, plus BONUS > disks etc., has been installed since then. please note that the bonus disks are *not* supported or in any way endorsed by Mattes; > pipeline, so that I would be better to wait for that. Also I seem > to recall mention in the Newsletter of a new LaTeX, and wonder > whether that might/should affect my decision. Yes, it should. There are two developments in the pipeline: a) Eberhard is preparing a final beta release of emTeX (the stuff which has been around for ages in betatest). this will mean a real new release early next year, at a guess. b) from early next year, LaTeX will move to a new version, which will be the only supported one. you will want to upgrade to that, and as soon as it is available, an emTeX-ready kit of that will be produced. So if it aint broke, wait another 2-3 months. Get the emTeX betatest stuff, and/or NFSS2 macros, if a) you want a good 386-specific TeX and MF, and drivers which do dynamic font creation b) you are writing LaTeX style files which load new fonts, in which case you should get NFSS2 to see how LaTeX2e will work. Sebastian Rahtz ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 16:29:24 +0000 From: proyston@uk.ac.rpms Subject: Drivers for LaserJet IV I recently sent out the attached message to the UK statistical community via ALLSTAT, and was advised to contact you for help. Text of my message follows. From proyston Tue Nov 16 09:47:24 1993 To: allstat-request@uk.ac.mailbase Subject: TeX and LaTeX for PC Cc: proyston I currently use Eberhard Mattes' implementation of LaTeX on the PC. It appears to have been released in about 1990, so it does not have a driver for the HP LaserJet IV. Unfortunately, the LaserJet+ driver does not work properly with the IV. Does anyone know where I can get a (shareware) driver for this printer? Or indeed, actually use one which works? Thanks in advance. Patrick Royston. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 16:33:43 +0000 From: Malcolm Clark Subject: Re: Drivers for LaserJet IV it does if you use postscript (at least on our machine). malcolm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 16:02:30 -0500 From: Alastair Rough Subject: Equivalent to \kill command in math mode? Is there a command in math mode which is equivalent to \kill in the LaTeX tabbing environment? I would like to use TeX to calculate some math mode values for me for use elsewhere but then I wish to suppress the display. Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 11:45:15 +0000 From: geo257@uk.ac.aberdeen Subject: LaTeX bibliography styles I am looking for some help with LaTeX bibliography styles. If you might be able to help me... [if not, please let me know!] The four standard styles offered by BIBTeX are not suitable for the work I am doing. I believe that the ftp.tex server contains extra files. Although there are arguments against it, I would like citations of the form [Author, 19yr] to appear in the text; in other words, I would like a style that takes the first author's surname and the year to construct the citation. The form of the reference list itself is less important. An alternative would be to mimic the key, e.g. {Author:19yr} would be acceptable. If you could give me any advice I would be very grateful. Cheers, Donald Payne. Donald Payne (Dept Geography, Aberdeen) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 13:52:14 +0000 From: spqr@uk.ac.tex.ftp Subject: Re: LaTeX bibliography styles > The four standard styles offered by BIBTeX are not suitable for the work I > am doing. I believe that the ftp.tex server contains extra files. > Although there are arguments against it, I would like citations > of the form [Author, 19yr] to appear in the text; in other words, I would ftp.tex.ac.uk:/pub/archive/biblio/bibtex/styles/contrib contains many styles you might want to try. the `harvard' style is along the right lines. you'll need the LaTeX style file to go with it to redefine the bibliography layout sebastian ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 12:34:03 +0000 From: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) Subject: Report on the inaugural meeting of the NTS group, September 1993 Report on the Inaugural Meeting of the NTS Core Group: September, 1993. ========================================================================= This is a report on the inaugural meeting of the NTS (`New Typesetting System') project group, held during the autumn DANTE meeting at Kaiserslautern (Germany) on 23rd and 25th September, 1993. Present: Joachim Lammarsch (DANTE President, and instigator of the NTS project) ; Philip Taylor (Technical co-ordinator, NTS project); Marion Neubauer (minutes secretary); Prof. Dr. Peter Breitenlohner, Mariusz Olko, Bernd Raichle, Joachim Schrod, Friedhelm Sowa. Background: Although the NTS project has been in existence for approximately eighteen months, there has not previously been a face-to-face meeting of members of the core group; at the Spring meeting of DANTE Rainer Sch\"opf announced his resignation as technical co-ordinator, and Philip Taylor was invited by Rainer and Joachim to take over as co-ordinator, which he agreed to do. Joachim Lammarsch opened the Autumn meeting by reviewing the history of the project and the rationale which lay behind its creation; each member of the group then briefly reviewed his or her particular area of interest in the project, after which the group received an extended presentation from Joachim Schrod on one possible approach to the realisation of NTS. The members of the group were broadly in support of the approach outlined by Joachim Schrod, and it was \stress {agreed} that this should form the basis for discussions at the meeting. The approach proposed by Joachim may be summarised as follows: {\TeX} in its present form is not amenable to modification; the code, although highly structured in some ways, is also painfully monolithic in others, and any attempt to modify the present code in anything other than trivial ways is almost certainly doomed to failure. Accordingly, before attempting to modify {\TeX} in any way it is first necessary to re-implement it, the idea behind such re-implementation being to eliminate the interdependencies of the present version and to replace these with a truly modular structure, allowing various elements of the typesetting process to be easily modified or replaced. This re-implementation should be undertaken in a language suitable for rapid prototyping, such as the Common Lisp Object System (`CLOS'). The primary reason for the re-implementation is to provide modularisation with specified internal interfaces and therby provide a test bed, firstly to ensure that {\TeX} has been properly re-implemented and subsequently to allow the investigation of new typesetting paradigms. Once a working test bed has been created, and compatibility with existing {\TeX} demonstrated, a second re-implementation will be undertaken; this re-implementation will have the same modular structure as the test bed but will be implemented with efficiency rather than extensibility in mind, and will be undertaken using a combination of literate programming and a widespread language with a more traditional approach, such as `C++'. When this second version has also been demonstrated to be compatible with {\TeX}, it will be made available to implementors around the world, the idea being to encourage people to migrate to NTS by demonstrating its complete compatibility with {\TeX} (the test bed will also be made available if there is interest shewn in its use). Thereafter new ideas and proposals will be investigated using the test bed, and if found to be successful these will be re-implemented in the distribution version. The main problem which the group identified with the approach outlined by Joachim was simply one of resources: in order to accomplish two re-implementations within a reasonable time-scale, it would be essential to use paid labour, it being estimated that each re-implementation requires a minimum of four man-months work to produce a prototype, and eight man-months to reach the production stage. As this is far beyond the ability of members of th e group to contribute in the short term, it is clearly necessary to employ a small team (of between two and four members) to carry out the re-implementation s under the guidance and supervision of one or more members of the core group. Initial costings suggested that this could not be accomplished within the present financial resources of the group, and accordingly it was \stress {agreed} that Joachim Lammarsch should seek further financial support. Subsequent investigations shewed that a quite significant reduction in costs could be achieved if the programming team were sited in a central or eastern European country, particularly if the members of the team were also residents of the country; this approach is being investigated. As it was obvious that no immediate progress could be made with Joachim Schrod's proposal, even though the group agreed that it represented an excellent philosophical approach, it was also \stress {agreed} that the group needed to identify some fallback approaches, which could (a)~be commenced immediately, and (b)~would be of significant benefit to the {\TeX} community at large. The group identified two such projects, these being (1)~the specification of a canonical {\TeX} kit, and (2)~the implementation of an extended {\TeX} (to be known as e-{\TeX}) based on the present WEB implementation. It was also \stress {agreed} that Marek Ry\'cko \& Bogus{\l}aw Jackowski would be asked if they were willing to co-ordinate the first of these activities, and that Peter Breitenlohner would co-ordinate the second. The ideas behind the two proposals are as follows. (1)~The canonical {\TeX} kit: at the moment, the most that can be assumed of any site offering {\TeX} is (a)~ini{\TeX}; (b)~plain {\TeX}; (c)~{\LaTeX}; and (d)~at least sixteen Computer Modern fonts. Whilst these are adequate for a restricted range of purposes, it is highly desirable when transferrin g documents from another site to be able to assume the existence of a far wider range of utilities. For example, it may be necessary to rely on BibTeX, or on MakeIndex; it may be useful to be able to assume the existenc e of BM2FONT; and so on. Rather than simply say ``all of these can be found on the nearest CTAN archive'', it would be better if all implementations contained a standard subset of the available tools. It is therefore the ai m of this project to identify what the elements of this subset should be, and then to liaise with developers and implementors to ensure that this subset is available for, and distributed with, each {\TeX} implementation. (2)~Extended {\TeX} (e-{\TeX}): whilst the test bed and production system approach is philosophically very sound, the reality at the moment is that the group lacks the resources to bring it to fruition. None the less, there are many areas in which a large group of existing {\TeX} users believe that improvements could be made within the philosophical constraints of the existing {\TeX} implementation. E-{\TeX} is an attempt to satisfy their needs which could be accomplished without a major investment of resources, and which can pursued without the need for additional paid labour. Finally the group agreed to individually undertake particular responsibilities; these are to be: Peter Breitenlohner: Remove any existing incompatibilities between {\TeX}--{\XeT} and {\TeX}, with the idea of basing further e-{\TeX} developments on {\TeX}--{\XeT}; liaise with Chris Thompson concerning portability of the code; produce a catalogue of proposed extensions to e-{\TeX}. Joachim Lammarsch: liaise with vendors and publishers in an attempt to raise money for the implementation of NTS proper; arrange a further meeting of interested parties; liaise with Eberhard Mattes concerning the present constraints on the unbundling of em{\TeX}; negotiate with leading academics concerning possible academic involvement in the project. Mariusz Olko: take responsibility for the multi-lingual aspects of e-{\TeX} and NTS; discuss the possibility of siting the NTS programming team in Poland; discuss the possibility of academic involvement with leading Polish academics. Bernd Raichle: endeavour to get {\TeX}--{\XeT} integrated into the standard UNIX distribution; prepare a list of proposed extensions to e-{\TeX}; lead discussions on NTS-L. Friedhelm Sowa: primary responsibility for finance; prepare proposals for a unified user interface and for unification of the integration of graphics; liaise with the Czech/Slovak groups concerning possible siting of the NTS programming team in the Czech Republic or Slovakia; discuss possible academic involvement with leading academics. Philip Taylor: Overall technical responsibility for all aspects of the project; liaise with other potential NTS core group members; prepare and circulate a summary of the decisions of this and future meetings. Philip Taylor, 09-NOV-1993 14:02:03 ------------------------------ UK TeX ARCHIVE at ASTON UNIVERSITY >>> UK.AC.TEX <<< *** Interactive and file transfer access *** JANET: uk.ac.tex (DTE 000020120091) Username: public, Password: public Internet: tex.ac.uk [134.151.79.28] -- telnet/rlogin, anonymous ftp ftp.tex.ac.uk [134.151.79.32] -- anonymous ftp, gopher, NFS For telnet access, login: public, password: public For anonymous ftp, login: anonymous, password: *** Mail server *** Send mail to TeXserver@uk.ac.tex (JANET) or TeXserver@tex.ac.uk (rest of the world) with message body containing the word HELP \section FILES OF INTEREST [tex-archive]00readme.txt [tex-archive]00index.files [tex-archive]0000index.zip_vve [tex-archive]00last7days.files [tex-archive]00last7days.zip_vve [tex-archive]00last30days.files [tex-archive]00last30days.zip_vve [tex-archive.doc]TeX-FAQ.txt (Frequently Asked Questions list) [tex-archive.doc]FAQ-Supplement-*.txt (FAQ supplement) \section DIGESTS This year's UKTeX back issues are stored in the archive in directory [tex-archive.digests.uktex.93] This year's TeXhax back issues are stored in the archive in directory [tex-archive.digests.texhax.93] Latest TeXhax: V93 #15 \section MEDIA DISTRIBUTIONS Postal addresses are given below. \subsection Washington Unix TeX distribution tape Latest copy of May/June 1991 contains: TeX 3.14, LaTeX 2.09, Metafont 2.7, plus many utilities suitable for Unix 4.2/4.3BSD & System V tar format, 1 file (36Mb) One Quarter-Inch Cartridge, QIC-120 or QIC-150 format (DC600A or DC6150) sent with envelope AND stamps for return postage to **Nottingham** (Due to currency exchange, this service is offered only within the UK) \section TeX IMPLEMENTATIONS FOR SMALL COMPUTERS \subsection OzTeX for Macintosh No longer distributed on disk from Aston, though it continues to be available in the Archive for network access. 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