Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!sdd.hp.com!samsung!crackers!m2c!umvlsi!dime!dime.cs.umass.edu!moss From: moss@cs.umass.edu (Eliot Moss) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Comparison of MSDOS TeX Performance (was VTeX for PC?) Message-ID: Date: 7 Mar 91 01:59:39 GMT References: <8727@plains.NoDak.edu> Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu Reply-To: moss@cs.umass.edu Organization: Dept of Comp and Info Sci, Univ of Mass (Amherst) Lines: 43 In-reply-to: gus@plains.NoDak.edu's message of 6 Mar 91 05:39:26 GMT Funny you should ask about TeX packages for MSDOS. I have personally tested and compared 3 of them: PCTeX, SBTeX, and emTeX. PCTeX you pay real money for; the version I have is 2.1 (the newer version may have different performance, etc.). SBTeX and emTeX are available on the net for free! I have SBTeX 3.1(c), known as sb34tex when you retrieve it. The version of emTeX is 3.0[3a]. These can both be gotten from msdos.archive.umich.edu via anonymous ftp. See directory pub/archive/msdos/TeX. Performance study details: I ran a 16 page conference paper of mine through each of these, using LaTeX (a format file needs to be built for each of them). The LaTeX source (lplain.tex) and supporting files were all the same (except for eliminating a couple of TeX 3.0 specific things from the PCTeX version, which is behind the times), and the source file was the same. I ran this on a Dell PC's Limited 286 at 8 MHz (i.e., 8 MHz 80286) with a 36 Mb hard disk (reasonably fast). Here are the times, in seconds: PCTeX 2.1 118 sbTeX 3.1(c) sb34 107 emTeX 3.0[3a] 97 (note: tex286.exe, not tex.exe) I would therefore recommend emTeX, which comes with a complete set of tools (if you have the space!). It also has a big-TeX version, which can run larger files at a slower rate. For PostScript output, Tomas Rokicki's dvips is great; you can get it via ftp from labrea.stanford.edu and it has msdos specific stuff to help you out. Some locations have pre-built .exe files even! PCTeX comes with a pretty nice and reasonably fast .dvi file previewer; emTeX has one, too, that I have not yet set up and used. I am working also on GhostScript as a .ps file previewer, but that system needs more work before it will be a good TeX previewer (memory limitations, and lack of previewer commands). Still, if you want to hack P*ostScr*pt on a PC, it's not a bad thing to have. It lives on prep.ai.mit.edu. Hope this helps folks out! Eliot Moss -- J. Eliot B. Moss, Assistant Professor Department of Computer and Information Science Lederle Graduate Research Center University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 (413) 545-4206, 545-1249 (fax); Moss@cs.umass.edu