Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site godot.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!godot!bruce From: bruce@godot.UUCP (Bruce Nemnich) Newsgroups: net.text Subject: Re: DVI question Message-ID: <640@godot.UUCP> Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 02:58:57 EST Article-I.D.: godot.640 Posted: Mon Dec 17 02:58:57 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 05:41:34 EST References: <4755@utzoo.UUCP> <2056@uw-june> <4776@utzoo.UUCP> Reply-To: bruce@godot.UUCP (Bruce Nemnich) Organization: Thinking Machines, Cambridge, MA Lines: 20 Summary: It's true that common fonts rarely exist across devices, with the notable exception of the Computer Modern family. I hope this situation will change, and I think it will, now that medium-resolution laserprinters are commonplace. I hope some good designers spend time using the new METAFONT when it is released. There should be a market for high-quality font families available for all the common printers. I have heard good things about Lucida, but I haven't seen it. Is it to be available only for Imagen printers? I digress. Formatters should be device independent if they are to be portable, else many people will hack the program for their own particular environment, each different from the other. TeX is device independent; no line of code in TeX need ever change because of a particular device, present or future. Really, that is no big deal: it only amounts to specifying distances in absolute units and keeping sufficient precision to prevent roundoff errors in all values. -- --Bruce Nemnich, Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA ihnp4!godot!bruce, bjn@mit-mc.arpa ... soon to be bruce@godot.arpa