Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!sce!cognos!garym From: garym@cognos.uucp@uunet.uu.net (Gary Murphy) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: MS-DOS TeX'ing: dosTeX vs sbTeX - summary so far Message-ID: Date: 24 Aug 90 16:52:03 GMT Sender: garym@cognos.UUCP Distribution: comp Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada Lines: 36 I really didn't expect to receive such an instant response to my posting! Many thanks to all who took the time to enlighten a poor novice! Basically, dosTeX appears to be a dinosaur from some lost age, having been usurped by the warmer-blooded sbTeX. sb30 no longer suffers from requiring different environment values from the CDVICGA and DVIEPS viewers, no longer requires the memory limits to be specified at preload time, and is generally smaller (slightly) and faster. sb30 also includes documentation, although you must have the system installed before you can read it (the .doc file is in TeX) -- when I first installed dosTeX, I had a problem of obtaining a test suite, sb30.doc solves two problems in one pass! sb30 also encourages letting sleeping fonts lay --- there is no 'preload' utility, and the TeX uses a complicated and fully configurable (to them what has the gnosis) memory system which can accomodate up to 32k words and handle run-time swapping of fonts to a user-specified swapfile location (RAM drive recommended). As an owner of a lowly 640k AT, I can't say very much about this feature, but I can say that I can print the 6 page documentation and the TeX->DVI stage will run inside of 440K (the documents claim 570k free is enough for the full 32k-words). Several respondents alluded to the emTeX as the next generation after sb, although none had actually used it. After reading about the font-swapping in sb30, I rather suspect the 'em' in the title has nothing to do with typeset spacing, and instead implies 'Extended/Expanded Memory' or some such -- not having either (except at work where, yes, they have no TeX), I'll need a better sales pitch before I convert. Again, many thanks and praises to all those who responded. -- Gary Murphy uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!garym (garym%cognos.uucp@uunet.uu.net) (613) 738-1338 x5537 Cognos Inc. P.O. Box 9707 Ottawa K1G 3N3 "There are many things which do not concern the process" - Joan of Arc