=====//===== \\ // ____ // \\ // |\ /| // // //====== \V/ ||\ //| \\ // // // \\ || \// | /\ \\ ===\ // //==== // \\ || | // \ \\ | // // // \\ || | //===\ \\___/ //======= // \ Volume 5 Number 1 A Mostly Unofficial Publication for Users of the TeX Typesetting System Contents Departments \footnote{}........................................................2 Letters to the Editor..............................................3 ToolBox............................................................4 \news{}............................................................5 Articles Replacement for \Vert: DBAR.TEX....................................6 Feature DEK talks on TeX...................................................7 TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 2 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | \footnote{Late, late, yes I know...} | |_____________________________________________________________________________| Well, I must apologize for the delay, but after working through some local network problems, a cluster merge, and taking a four week vacation, I'm finally back to publishing TeXMaG. It has been a much needed and very nice break. This issue is somewhat short due to the hurriedness of its completion in order to let you know TeXMaG was still in existence. I think some of you will really find the ToolBox helpful. It allows you to do some fun things with the filename of your TeX file. Our ToolBox only scratched the surface of some things that you could do with the ideas. If you come up with a creative application, we would love to see (and print) it! All those things I promised in the previous "On the Horizon" article last month are still "On the Horizon," but perhaps we are getting a little closer to dawn. -neil TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 3 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Letters to the Editor | |_____________________________________________________________________________| Dear editors, As the author of a LaTeX package for writing theses (mitthesis.sty), your statement about upcoming reviews of such packages piqued my interest. What is this going to be about? I also note that the article on fonts asks where to get the Metafont versions of the Hershey fonts. There is no Metafont version; these fonts were digitized by hand. < Stephen [The macro package is called BluTeX, and is the preferred package by the local thesis clerk for writing theses here at Texas A&M. More on this in a later issue. -ed] Dear editors, The Bashkirian and Mongol fonts are also available from listserv@ubvm. These are the following files: rustex-l 90-00266, rustex-l 90-00267, rustex-l 90-00268, rustex-l 90-00270, rustex-l 90-00271, rustex-l 90-00274, rustex-l 90-00275, rustex-l 90-00281 The zusatz letters are designed to be used together with the washington cyrillic fonts. I'm also working on zusatz letters for African languages. There is a long list of them, published in TeXhax90.065 . Work is still in progress, but I send you the metafont code, if you send me a short mail including who you are and the reason of interest. The laguages covered are: Basa (Kru), Dinka, Efik, Ewe, Fulful, G\%a, Hausa, Kanuri, Kpelle, Mandekan (Bambara), Mende, Ngala (Lingala), Songhai, Zulu (African) Kroatian, Maltese and Sami (European) J\"org Knappen Bitnet: Knappen@dmznat51 Institut f\"ur Kernphysik Postfach 3980 D-W6500 Mainz R.F.A. P.S. A Font with miscellaneous symbols is available from listserv@dhdurz1 send wasy uue It's created by R. Waldi from Karlsruhe. Unfortunately he has duplicated some work done elsewhere, but there are still enough interesting things in it. TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 4 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | The ToolBox | |_____________________________________________________________________________| Sometimes it is nice to be able to use the information in a filename.tex as information in a particular document. For example, suppose I wanted to typeset TeXMaG on real paper, and be able to have the volume and issue numbers read from the title of the file that TeX was processing, and subsequently assigned to tokens for use in the document, perhaps in a header. Say my file was named TEXMAG-5-1.TEX. The following would isolate the 5 and the 1 for use within the document: % This particular idea was developed by our chief consultant % Dr. John McClain \newtoks \volumenumber \newtoks \issuenumber \def\parse#1-#2-#3-{\global\volumenumber={#2} \global\issuenumber={#3}} \expandafter\parse\jobname- \headline={Volume \the\volumenumber, Number \the\issuenumber \hfil page \folio} % end of macro Notice the \jobname contains the name of the file (without any extension, see the TeXBook, p. 213). The \expandafter allows you to piece apart this token into its volume and number. We also had to chose a special delimiter which would conform to standards of a filename and be a legal parameter delimiter in TeX. A space would not have worked as a legal file name. A hyphen was our best choice. When you test this, remember that the filename must conform to the parameter specs of \parse (in this case, two minus signs, i.e. XXXX-N-N.TEX). Like I said earlier, this is just a start. Take the ball and run with this idea. We'd love to see your creative applications! TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 5 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | \news{Announcing: INFO-TeX} | |_____________________________________________________________________________| INFO-TeX is a new list supported by Sam Houston State University to provide an unmoderated environment for the discussion of Donald Knuth's TeX document processing system. The discussions are intended to include all related aspects and extensions of TeX on all operating platforms, including LaTeX, AMSTeX, BibTeX, METAFONT, and others based on or consistent with the logic and structure of TeX. The explicit purpose of INFO-TeX is to provide quick and timely interchange between subscribers, to provide a forum where support may be available for interesting questions which cannot be addressed locally, and to discuss the evolution of TeX and its related products. Archives of INFO-TeX postings will be available for reference. As is the case on all unmoderated lists, the discussion and topics are only limited by the participation and interest of its subscribers. Subscribers are welcome to take an active role by posting to INFO-TeX or an inactive role by monitoring the list. To subscribe to INFO-TeX, please send a MAIL message to: LISTSERV@SHSU.BITNET The body of this MAIL message should be one line and contain the words: SUBSCRIBE INFO-TeX Questions regarding this announcement should be addressed to the list owner at any of the addresses listed below. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% George D. Greenwade, Ph.D. Bitnet: BED_GDG@SHSU Department of Economics and Business Analysis THEnet: SHSU::BED_GDG P. O. Box 2118 Voice: (409) 294-1266 Sam Houston State University FAX: (409)294-3612 Huntsville, TX 77341 Internet: bed_gdg%shsu.bitnet@utadnx.cc.utexas.edu %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 6 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Replacement for \Vert | |_____________________________________________________________________________| by Raymond Chen Mathematical types out there might find the following macros amusing. They let you type || instead of \Vert under most circumstances. I find that they make the ASCII a little more readable. These macros have served me for three years, but that doesn't mean that they're bug-free. (In particular, they haven't been tested with LaTeX.) Bug reports gracefully accepted. %% dbar.tex -- allow the double bar to be entered directly into math formulas %% by Raymond Chen (raymond@math.berkeley.edu) % % With these macros, you can write || anyplace you normally would type \Vert, % except after \big \Big etc. (\left and \right work fine.) % With a little more work, one could even get \big, \Big, etc. to work, % but it's probably not worth the trouble since one rarely sees nested % parentheses inside a || ... ||. (Right?) Besides, you can just type % \big\| like you did in the good ol' days. \catcode`\"=11 % Make " a letter \catcode`\|=\active \def\"bar{\futurelet\next\"bar"} \let|=\"bar \def\"bar"{\ifx\next|\let\next\eat"bar\else\let\next\vert\fi\next} \def\eat"bar|{\|} % Must redefine \left and \right to handle this new convention \let\"left=\left \let\"right=\right % \left and \right save the direction in \nxt and the delimiter in \next \def\left{\let\nxt\"left\futurelet\next\del"mcheck} \def\right{\let\nxt\"right\futurelet\next\del"mcheck} % \del"mcheck dispatches the natural case and calls \bar"check % for the vertical bar case. \def\del"mcheck{\ifx\next|\let\next\bar"check\else\let\next\nxt\fi\next} % \bar"check eats the vertical bar and sees if there is another one \def\bar"check|{\futurelet\next\dbar"check} % \dbar"check sees if there's another one; if not, it typesets as usual; % otherwise, typeset the \Vert. \def\dbar"check{\ifx\next|\let\next\eat"bar\else\let\next\vert\fi\nxt\next} \catcode`\"=12 % back to normal %%%% An example We can define $$\eqalign{ || v || &= \left|| \sum_i \alpha_i e_i \right|| \cr &= \max_i |\alpha_i| \cr }$$ TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 1 page 7 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | The Future of TeX and Metafont | |_____________________________________________________________________________| [I read this first in TeXline, although I belive it appeared in TUGboat as well. -ed] by Donald Knuth My work on developing TeX, Metafont, and Computer Modern has come to an end. I will make no further changes except to correct extremely serious bugs. I have put these systems into the public domain so that people everywhere can use the ideas freely if they wish. I have also spent thousands of hours trying to ensure that the systems produce essentially identical results on all computers. I strongly believe that an unchanging system has great value, even though it is axiomatic that any complex system can be improved. Therefore I believe that it is unwise to make further `improvements' to the systems called TeX and Metafont. Let us regard these systems as fixed points, which should give the same results 100 years from now that they produce today. The current version number for TeX is 3.1, and for Metafont it is 2.7. If corrections are necessary, the next versions of TeX will be 3.14, then 3.141, then 3.1415, ..., converging to the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter; for Metafont the sequence will be 2.71, 2.718, ..., converging to the base of natural logarithms. I intend to be fully responsible for all changes to these systems for the rest of my life. I will periodically study reports of apparent bugs, and I will decide whether changes need to be made. Rewards will be paid to the first finders of any true bugs, at my discretion, but I can no longer afford to double the size of the reward each year. Whenever I have created a new version, I will put it in the official master TeX archive, which currently resides at Stanford University. At the time of my death, it is my intention that the then-current versions of TeX and Metafont be forever left unchanged, except that the final version numbers to be reported in the `banner' lines of the programs should become TeX, Version $\pi$ and METAFONT, Version $e$ respectively. From that moment on, all `bugs' will be permanent `features.' As stated on the copyright pages of Volumes B, D, and E, anybody can make use of my programs in whatever way they wish, as long as they do not use the names TeX, Metafont, or Computer Modern. In particular, any person or group who wants to produce a program superior to mine is free to do so. However, nobody is allowed to call a system TeX or Metafont unless that system conforms 100% to my own programs, as I have specified in the manuals for the trip and trap tests. And nobody is allowed to use the names of the Computer Modern fonts in Volume E for any fonts that do not produce identical .tfm files. This prohibition applies to all people or machines, whether appointed by TUG or by any other organization. I do not intend to delegate the responsibility for maintainance of TeX, Metafont, or Computer Modern to anybody else, ever. page 8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course I do not claim to have found the best solution to every problem. I simply claim that it is a great advantage to have a fixed point as a building block. Improved macro packages can be added on the input side; improved device drivers can be added on the output side. I welcome continued research that will lead to alternative systems that can typeset documents better than TeX is able to do. But the authors of such systems must think of another name. That is all I ask, after devoting a substantial portion of my life to the creation of these systems and making them available to everybody in the world. I sincerely hope that the members of TUG will help me to enforce these wishes, by putting severe pressure on any person or group who produces any incompatible system and calls it TeX or Metafont or Computer Modern -- no matter how slight the incompatibility might seem. ______________________________________________________________________ TeXMaG is an electronic magazine available free of charge to all interested parties reachable by electronic mail. It is published monthly. Letters to the editor may be sent to NABTEXM@TAMVENUS (BITNet) or NABTEXM@RIGEL.TAMU.EDU (Internet) and may be published in a future issue. Publisher: Academic Computing Services of Texas A&M University Managing Editor: Neil Burleson Copy Editor: Diana Armstrong Chief Consultant: John McClain, Ph.D SUBSCRIPTIONS: CDNnet: Send a note to asking to receive TeXMaG. JANET: Send a note to Peter Abbott, asking to receive TeXMaG. All others: Send the following command as an interactive message (Bitnet) or as a single-line mail message to LISTSERV@UICVM or LISTSERV@UICVM.UIC.EDU: SUBS TEXMAG-L Your_Full_Name. If you have difficulty doing this, send a note to Neil Burleson . SUBMISSIONS: Please send submissions to or ; they will automatically be forwarded to the editor. BACK ISSUES: Back issues may be FTP'd from YMIR.CLAREMONT.EDU from the directory [ANONYMOUS.TEX.PERIODICALS.TEXMAG] Back issues may also be FTP'd from SUN.SOE.CLARKSON.EDU from the directory pub/texmag. Users without FTP access may request back issues from the Clarkson repository by sending a mail message to with the form path A_MAIL_PATH_FROM_CLARKSON_TO_YOU get texmag texmag.V.NN where V is the volume number and NN is the issue number. Including a line "index texmag" in the message will return a list of back issues available. Janet users may obtain back issues from the Aston archive. Those who are on SPAN can get in touch with Max Calvani at 39003::CALVANI for infos about SPAN archive. \bye bye! % End of TeXMaG %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%