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