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From: hessmann@unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de (Georg Hessmann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: TeX versions for Amiga
Message-ID: <1990Oct10.152645.19129@forwiss.uni-passau.de>
Date: 10 Oct 90 15:26:45 GMT
References: <32880@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Sender: usenet@forwiss.uni-passau.de (USENET News System)
Organization: University of Passau, W-Germany
Lines: 69

In article <32880@nigel.ee.udel.edu> @utrcgw.utc.com:mark@ardnt1 (mark) writes:

[...]

>Back to the original questions:
>I have looked at PasTeX. The documentation is in German. I haven't used it, 
>since it doesn't come with much in the way of fonts, and I can't read 
>German. I don't recommend this kind of thing for a beginner. CommonTeX is 
>something I have never persued. Someone (I think Chris Brand? 
>wizard@sosaria?) has done a PD port of TeX3.0 for the amiga, and I got one 
>of those files and had troubles at this end with UNIX->VAX->PC->amiga 
>transfers, so I haven't finished looking at that.

Good news. The next version of PasTeX has a complete english
documentation (thanks to Thomas Tavoly who has translated it!).

If you have an AmigaTeX installation you have no problem to try
PasTeX. It uses the fonts from AmigaTeX without any problem.
It supports even font-caching.

You can also use all macros and pk-fonts from UN*X TeX distributions.

The TeX-programs from PasTeX are TeX3.0, too. They are not as fast
as the AmigaTeX TeX-programs (initex, virtex), but they are 'pure'
and they have an ARexx port to call an editor if an error occures.
An sample set of ARexx scripts for an TeX environment
(virtex <-> CED <-> ShowDVI) are also part of the PasTeX distribution.

>Final notes: 
>Tom's AmigaTeX is currently at a revision of around 2.99r or s. This means 
>that it has some of the features of 3.0, but without virtual fonts. His 
>last newsletter said that he is working on that, but is waiting for further 
>developments in postscript-interpreting libraries, so that the VF's could 
>all be postscript, and the output could be on anything. This sounds 
>exciting, but is still a future development.
>
>TeX3.0 is not an amiga implementation of TeX as such, but rather the latest 
>version of TeX as a language from D. Knuth. METAFONT is up to 2.0, also. 
>The new version includes things for international character sets, 8-bit 
>inputs, virtual fonts, and some other things which are arcane to most 
>normal users, but make the internals work better. If you can get it, and it 
>works, great, but make sure that you know the differences between, for 
>instance, amigatex at 2.99q and TeX3.0 and that you need 3.0 specific stuff 
>before turning up your nose at an older version.
>
>Also, keep in mind that the only TeX for the amiga that is `supported' is 
>AmigaTeX. Tom's support is superlative---not only through bix (the only 
>official support for Amiga C is thru bix) but through his own BBS and 
>through internet/bitnet e-mail as well! 

But it is expensive. OK, it's a very good implementation,
but IMHO it's too expensive (here in Germany) for programs 
that are PD on every other computer system.
On UN*X systems, Tom's postscript driver is PD and comes with source.
On the Amiga, I must pay for it.

I will support my TeX distribution so long as I have access to the net. :-)

As soon as I have my next version finished (my hard disk is dead :-( ),
I will send it to comp.binaries.amiga. This version will come with
an english documentation and all what you need, to set up an complete
TeX environment.

>raybro%utrc@utrcgw.utc.com

	Georg.

--
  hessmann@unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de		hessmann@unipas.uucp