Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-june
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!edsel!bentley!hoxna!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta
From: furuta@uw-june (Richard Furuta)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: DVI question
Message-ID: <2056@uw-june>
Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 05:15:45 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-june.2056
Posted: Tue Dec 11 05:15:45 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Dec-84 05:22:36 EST
References: <4755@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 25

>I hate to tell you this, but even TeX has to care about the output
>device.  Things like character widths affect line breaks, and widths
>are seldom the same from one device to another.  The use of device-
>independent units of measurement is a red herring; the quality of the
>output is still going to be poor if the formatter has the wrong idea
>about what device the stuff is headed for.

Well, to take this definition to another level of pickiness, I assert that
this is not "device dependence" but instead "environment dependence."  With
TeX, you get the Metafonted fonts and the point of all of that is to give
you an approximation of a consistent environment for the different devices
you want to print to.  Poor quality output from certain devices reflects
differences between what they provide and the "ideal device" that TeX
expects to find.

The fact that you find different width fonts on different devices is a
reflection of real world factors (like different designers, copyrights, and
trade secrets).  None of this changes the fact that TeX will produce the
same output file for two radically different devices as long as they share
the same environment (i.e., fonts).  The DVI file can be (and often is)
transferred between computers and sites for printing on devices of differing
resolutions and abilities.  Ditroff, on the other hand, imbeds information
about the specific characteristics of the device into its output format.

					--Rick