Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!matt@cosmic.berkeley.edu
From: matt@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Public domain TeX on the IBM PC.
Message-ID: <13142@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Aug 88 23:01:47 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: matt@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Organization: UCB Physics Department
Lines: 42

Thanks to all who responded to my request for information on
public-domain TeX for the IBM PC.  Here's what I've learned:

(1) This topic is often discussed on comp.text.  It's probably a
    better newsgroup than this one.  Sorry.

(2) On ucbvax (available through anonymous ftp) is the source for
    Common TeX, written in C.  I've glanced at the source; it doesn't
    appear to be ported to the PC environment, so compiling it may
    require some fiddling.  Guess this is my chance to see if the
    Microsoft C standard library is *really* the standard library.
    I was told by phr@WEB.berkeley.edu that Common TeX will run on the AT
    but not on the XT; I don't understand what the reason for that
    might be (memory segmentation problems, maybe?), but I'll see if I can
    hack things anyway.

(3) The full TeX distribution (20M compressed!) is available from
    score.stanford.edu.  Individual pieces (in particular, the source
    in web format) are available from labrea.stanford.edu.  To convert
    the web programs to "standard" Pascal, use the utilities tangle
    and weave; these are available from simtel20.arpa.  (pd1: