Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!rti!sas!bts From: bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga Tex, redux Message-ID: <493@sas.UUCP> Date: 5 May 88 02:02:45 GMT References: <23631@bbn.COM> <249@b11.UUCP> <796@ur-cvsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) Organization: SAS Institute Inc, Cary NC Lines: 88 In article <796@ur-cvsvax.UUCP> jea@ur-cvsvax.UUCP (Joanne Albano) writes: |There is a TeX interpreter-like user-friendly front end |for Suns called Publisher. Is there any such beast for the |AMIGA? How much is AmigaTeX? There sure has been a lot of talk about AmigaTeX lately. A *brief* summary: [well, I *tried* to keep it brief] AmigaTeX is an implementation of Donald Knuth's TeX typesetting package, a document compiler that runs on machines from IBM mainframes to Unix boxes to CDCs to PCs to, yes, the Amiga. Drivers are available to get output on everything from APS phototypesetters to laser printers to dot-matrix printers to, yes, the Amiga screen. It is available in source form for `free' for only $100, or $120 for Unix. Commercial implementations for PC run around $500, and those for the Mac around $800 (I mention this only for perspective). It is *not* a wysiwyg (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) package; it is more like TROFF or SCRIBE or SCRIPT: The input file is plain ASCII and contains control sequences to do things. The TeX language is very powerful; Tom Rokicki has a "towers of hanoi" program written in TeX, for example ('though I wouldn't really recommend chucking your C compiler in favor of TeX). With the LaTeX macro package, you can get automatic section numbering, table of contents, cross-references, &c. With a simple program called "texidx" and LaTeX you can also get automatic indices. TeX does automatic justification and line-breaking, including a *superb* algorithm for hyphenating words automatically. For long documents (as opposed to one-page flyers), all this is really much better than wysiwyg. For one-page things, I must admit that wysiwyg is better, though I now use TeX for everything ('cause I know it). TeX is also absolutely state-of-the-art for typesetting mathematics. If you set lots of math, you want TeX. Period. The AmigaTeX implementation is indisputably one of the best ports ever done, for any machine (this sentiment is not just mine). Tomas Rokicki, besides being a leading light of the Amiga world (he's filled a number of Fish disks by himself) is also prominent in the TeX world, having invented the ".pk" format for storing TeX fonts and pioneered the TeX-in-C effort (which you may be running even now on your Unix system, if you've just gotten a very recent port tape, and stuff runs scads faster). [disclaimer: if any of this is exagerated, an embarressed Tom will post a correction shortly, no doubt.] It is *basically* a traditional implementation, but Tom has added an ARexx communication port between the AmigaTeX and the (included) previewer. This allows the previewer to instantaneously display pages from AmigaTeX without having to wait for the document to finish. By moving the previewer window from a custom screen to the workbench screen and using something like "conman" while running TeX, you can get formulae or custom symbols built by combining existing symbols "just right" with instantaneous feedback. It's not quite as cute as the equation editor in the Publisher, but it is nearly as useful. Also, AmigaTeX will understand all of the Amiga characters. This makes the input rather more pleasant if, like me, you have occaison to use diacritical marks fairly often. (I am secretary of the local Baha'i public information office, and lots of words relating to my Faith take diacriticals.) It sells for $200 for AmigaTeX + $100 for each printer-driver you get. The $200 includes TeX, the previewer, previewer fonts, LaTeX, AMSTeX, initex, and all the macro source files. It is distributed on 10 disks. It is usuable on a one-drive, 2-meg Amiga (I used it that way for over a year), a two-drive, 1-meg machine, or a 1-meg machine with a hard disk. It *can* be used with a 512k machine, but I wouldn't recommend it; without at least 1 meg, you can't run the LaTeX macro package, and without LaTeX, I find TeX pretty unpleasent to use. You will be missing only two things for the $300 above: A book to describe TeX itself (available at your local B. Dalton), and "texidx" (the automatic indexing program I mentioned above). I will be happy to send "texidx" (excutable and/or source, for the Amiga) and the style-file I use with it to anybody who needs it. I need to get around to telling Tom; he'll probably be happy to include it on the standard TeX distribution. To order: Tomas Rokicki / Radical Eye Software / Box 2081 / Stanford, CA 94309 He's got an electronic address, too, but I don't remember the address and doubt that it matters since everything I send to him seems to get sucked into a black hole. DISCLAIMER: I am a long-term TeX fan. A year and a half ago, when I decided to buy a home computer, I looked around to find the best TeX engine for the least money I could find. I therefore bought an Amiga so I could get the machine that ran AmigaTeX. I've never regretted that decision. This is my only connection with AmigaTeX and Tom Rokicki. ALSO: He has dropped his former distribution comany (n^2). If you gave up on AmigaTeX due to distribution problems, try again. -- --Brian. (Brian T. Schellenberger) ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts . . . now at 2400 baud, so maybe I'll stop bothering to flame long includes.