Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!hmcvax.claremont.edu
From: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: TeX and 1270 dpi Linotronic output
Message-ID: <7502@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 17 Jun 90 15:32:47 GMT
References: <1990May26.040231.22931@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Sender: news@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
Reply-To: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu
Organization: Harvey Mudd College
Lines: 63

In article <1990Jun16.182800.26891@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes...
>In article <1990May26.040231.22931@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>,
>tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) writes:
>> We have a Linotronic typesetter at University of Toronto and I would
>> be interested in hearing about user experiences with TeX and high 
>> resolution output devices.

>> In particular jobs fail regularly with a VM Error (out of memory) and
>> I am interested in hearing of others with similar experience and of ANY
>> possible solutions to this. 

>There seem to be a growing number of similar comments about TeX being
>memory bound (the same problem affects METAFONT); as the resolution of
>display devices continues to increase, existing implementations of TeX
>are failing with lack of memory or lack of array size error messages.

>Does the new release of TeX and METAFONT address these problems?  If not,
>is anyone going through the code looking at ways to overcome these limits?

Well, TeX doesn't know output resolution from Adam, so I really
don't see how there can be a problem with TeX's memory as a
result of output device resolution. Document complexity, perhaps,
although 32bit TeX (the most common version and what you get on
most dinky computers (e.g., PCs, Macs, etc.)) can handle more
complicated documents than almost anything else and the only
cases where one runs into problems is with documents that use
graphics packages like PiCTeX which actually do the graphics
typesetting in TeX itself.

MF also does not maintain a bitmap in memory (at least not all of
the time) so it does a pretty good job of keeping itself going at
decent resolutions. The only times I've seen MF run out of memory
is in the case that MF is used to manipulate bitmaps.

Both of these problems can be solved by switching to a version of
TeX (or MF) which uses 64bit memory words thus giving 32bit
addressibility in the main memory array.

The more likely location for memory problems at high resolutions
is in the printer driver or the printer itself. The Linotronic
typesetters have ridiculously small amounts of VM causing
difficulties with bitmapped fonts. However, intelligent managing
of the font memory (cf. Tom Rokicki's dvips) deals with the
problem rather well.

Also, Type 1 PS versions of CM will probably be a reality in the
next year or so and a version of MF outputting outline fonts will
be available within that same time frame. (Please don't send me
with mail on this latter item--every mail message that I get
delays my posting of the details on the state of the matter by a
little bit more).

-dh

---
Don Hosek                         "Other people get into occupations by 
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu          accident or design; but writers are born. 
dhosek@ymir.bitnet                 We have to write. I have to write. I 
uunet!jarthur!ymir                 could work at selling motels, or slopping 
                                   hogs, for fifty years, but if someone asked 
                                   me my occupation, I'd say writer, even if 
                                   I'd never sold a word. Writers _write_. 
                                   Other people _talk_."      -W.P. Kinsella