Subject: TeXhax Digest V90 #36 From: TeXhax Digest Errors-To: TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu Maint-Path: TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu To: TeXhax-Distribution-List:; Reply-To: TeXhax@cs.washington.edu TeXhax Digest Sunday, March 25, 1990 Volume 90 : Issue 36 Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay %%% The TeXhax digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group %%% %%% in cooperation with the UnixTeX distribution service at the %%% %%% University of Washington %%% Today's Topics: Corrections: info from TeXMaG V3N4 HP LASERJET Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #24 Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #22 3-d TeX (TeXhax Digest V90 #27) dvi to videotape GUTenberg'90 preliminary agenda Numeric Constants and \if Conditionals TeX, \tempcount Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #30, Numeric constants and \if conditionals Odd MF behaviour revisted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%Moderator's note: TeXMaG V3N4 found its way into the %%TeXhax Digest by error. The following corrections should %%be noted. Date: Mon 19 Mar 90 06:27:05-EST From: b beeton Subject: Corrections: info from TeXMaG V3N4 Keywords: corrections Here are a few corrections to the summary from TeXMaG V3N4 posted in TeXhax #30. Note that Score.Stanford.edu, the former canonical home of TeX, was discontinued in September 1989, and has been superseded by labrea.Stanford.edu, a UNIX machine. *TeXhax ... Back issues prior to 88(75) may be FTP'd from LABREA.STANFORD.EDU in the directory /tex/texhax LaTeX-style collection. The archive at sun.soe.clarkson.edu is now much more comprehensive than just LaTeX files, and includes, among other material, shadow copies of most of the canonical WEB, TeX, and Metafont-related software and fonts from Labrea.Stanford.edu. Details are published in TUGboat. LISTSERV@TAMVM1 also has file archives that may be of interest to TeX users on BITNET, including the files from the Labrea.Stanford.EDU FTP. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 90 19:03:36 EDT From: Tom Bennett Subject: HP LASERJET Keywords: HP LASERJET, serial port Has anyone had any luck printing TEX formatted files to the HP LASRJET II directly to the serial port? I can change the format into PostScript and copy them to a PC and via Jet Script get them out in Gorgeous form. I am using the Columbia drivers that are on the network. Thanks for any help you might have.... Date: Sun, 18 Mar 90 21:55:06 CST From: shapiro@zorro.cecer.army.mil (Michael Shapiro) Subject: Latex indentation I have two questions concerning indentation in Latex: (1) How do I get Latex to indent the first paragraph in a section? (2) How do I get Latex to do reverse indentation?, e.g. This paragraph starts out at the left margin, but every other line in the paragrph is indented. This format is almost the same as "verse" but "verse" indents the entire paragraph -- first line is indented and the others doubly indented. A verse paragrph starts out indented like this and then the next lines are indented even more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 90 20:52:32 CET From: Joachim Lammarsch Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #24 Keywords: TeX, capacity exceeded > >I have installed TeX 2.93 on a VM/CMS system. >On several occasions people have been given the message: >! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=65535] >when they have successfully run TeX on another system on the same >file. My question is: What must I do to increase the main memory? You have to increase the value of max_halfword. I plan for the next version of the VM/CMS distribution tape a BIGTeX. >I had better add: I haven't got the hang of WEB yet, so please bear >that in mind when you reply. > >Thanks in advance. > >Ivan Fabian >User Support >Rutherford Appleton Lab. Kind regards Joachim Lammarsch (VM/CMS site coordinator) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 90 20:10:53 CET From: Joachim Lammarsch <$33%DHDURZ1@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #22 Keywords: VM/CMS, dvialw >Subject: dvialw under VM/CMS >Is there anyone out there working with TeX under IBM's VM/CMS ? Yes! >In particular, I am looking for BibTeX and DVIALW. A reference to an >appropriate repository would be of great help. BibTeX is at the current VM/CMS distribution tape. To get a copy of DVIALW please drop me a note. >Thanks in advance, Christof. You are welcome! Kind regards Joachim Lammarsch (VM/CMS site coordinator) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 90 12:57:05 -0800 From: mackay (Pierre MacKay) Subject: 3-d TeX (TeXhax Digest V90 #27) Keywords: SliTeX SliTeX already points the way to color overlays, and the approach could be used independently of LaTeX formatting. Tom Ridgeway's collection of display font "extra_endchar" routines for standard fonts could be used with color to dazzling effect. (There is also a risk of nauseating rather than dazzling, but we count on the exercise of taste that permeates the TeX world.) TeX can certainly position images accurately enough for illusory effects, but can print-engines live up to the challenge? This question relates to the problem in the next "Magic squares" communication. If the boxes fail to match by what looks like a pixel width, the problem may be in the way rule_pixel rounding is handled in the driver, but it may also be that a little more complexity has to be introduced to get overlapping pixels at the corners. Don discusses this in the rule_pixels section of dvitype.web. Forms designers, like DB Publisher for example, spend a good deal of effort on calculating the overshoot necessary to insure closed corners throughout. Email: mackay@cs.washington.edu Pierre A. MacKay Smail: Northwest Computing Support Center TUG Site Coordinator for Thompson Hall 35F, Mail Stop DR05 Unix-flavored TeX University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 (206) 543-6259 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 01:36:31 EST From: Allan Adler Subject: dvi to videotape Keywords: sdviware, videotape I am preparing some videotaped lectures on mathematics and discovering that graphics are more important and more inconvenient than I had imagined. Blackboard, oaktag and character generators all have serious drawbacks which I would like to avoid. Another kludge I will experiment with is typesetting something with TeX and printing out with a laser printer onto a transparency, showing the transparency with an overhead projector and aiming the camera at the image on the wall. This is rather indirect. I would much prefer to have a way of directly producing the videotape from the dvi file. Is such a thing possible ? Allan Adler ara@lom1.math.yale.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 90/03/14 at 14H From: UCIR001%FRORS31@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: GUTenberg'90 preliminary agenda Keywords: GUTenberg, agenda Please find below the preliminary agenda for GUTenberg'90. It will be certainly a first class congress with tutorials, conferences, social events, showrooms, workshops, etc. Don't miss that congress! (People never forget a GUTenberg congress.) It will be the first conference of the new TeX V3.0 era. Don't worry about the language, immediate translation will be provided. Make up your mind today! And enjoy your stay in the `pinck city' of Toulouse located in the south-west of France. Bernard GAULLE (GUTenberg president) %--------------------------- CUT HERE ----------------------------------------- %%PLEASE CIRCULATE/POST %% Preliminary (short) Agenda *first mailing* ===================================== 90/03/14 G U T e n b e r g ' 9 0 15--18 May 1990 University Paul Sabatier T O U L O U S E (France) ===================================== *Official LANGUAGE is French but immediat translation will be provided from French and English. *Preliminary AGENDA May 15 Tutorial 1: (in french) LaTeX for beginers (O. Nicole) and Tutorial 2: going to professional quality with electronic and personal publishing tools (with an ending debate). A 2 * tutorial!!!!! May 16 (morning soon): Business meeting of GUTenberg members 10H30 AM Opening the conference (B.Gaulle-M.Laugier) Greetings of the TUG president (N. Beebe) A new TeX for a new decade ========================== A new era --- \TeX{} V3.0 (M. Fergusson) PC\TeX{} for the nineties (L. Carnes) Going to introduce color in TeX documents (C. Cerin et B. Lemaire) Professional Applications ========================= 2H50 PM Few examples of works asked by publishers (D.Collin) Our questions starting with LaTeX (J. Grimault) Typesetting dictionaries (D. Klutz) Why TeX? And why not... (M. Laugier) Discussion on possibilities and limits of TeX A surprising sponsored Cocktail May 17 New products, new facilities ============================ 9H30 AM Upon barcodes EAN13 (L. Guillope) Typestting ADA programs (P. Naudin, C. Quitte) About diagrams (F. Borceux) Typesetting bridge (CG. Van der Laan) Polyphonic or instrumental Music with TeX (D. Taupin) Multitex (E. Amar) Required tools in text editors for easy use of LaTeX (N. Brouard) A SGML session ============== 2H50 PM TeX and SGML (CG Van der Laan) Introducing SGML and its applications (special case of \TeX{}) (F. Chahuneau) News on ... =========== L\AmSTeX{} (L. Siebenmann) Networks and archive servers (GUTenberg) GUT90 diskettes and public domain (GUTenberg) MLTeX distributions (GUTenberg) etc. Closing session followed by a cocktail sponsored by Personal TeX inc. Other not listed social events will occur. May 18 Tutorial 3: (in french) Writing \TeX{} macros (for beginers) by R. S\'eroul ============= ! If you would like to attend and you never received a GUTenberg mailing ! please feel free to ask Pierre LEGRAND for congress and accomodation ! forms at this address: ! or by fax: (33-1) 61.28.52.73 ! Very low fees (+ 10% off before April, 23) ============= --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 90 09:27:29 -0500 From: amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: Numeric Constants and \if Conditionals Keywords: TeX, \if, numeric constants Date: Mon, 5 Mar 90 10:54 EST From: \newcount\tempcount \newcount\ref \tempcount=1 \ref=2 % \advance\tempcount by 2\ifnum\tempcount<\ref \message{\noexpand\tempcount Tests Less than \number\ref. Its actual value is \number\tempcount.}\fi \end This code totally boggles TeX. As a matter of fact, after processing by TeX the screen shows ``\tempcount Tests Less than 2. Its actual value is 3.'' A number of other test files using \if constructs in similar ways have also managed to produce weird results. As you point out in your next paragraph, a space after the constant "2" solves the problem. Here's why: When TeX is scanning a numeric constant, it needs to know where the constant ends. It is legal to have a construction such as \count17=3\iffoo4\else5\fi which will set \count17 equal to either 34 or 35, depending on the value of \iffoo. So what's happening in your example is that TeX is still looking for the argument of \advance and so it *hasn't finished advancing the register* when it encounters the \if; it therefore uses the ``old'' value. Now, the \ifnum becomes true (since we're using the old value) and then the next token is read -- in this case a \message, which terminates the constant. TeX advances the count register and then continues scanning the \message, which is why you get the `correct' values output. I hope this clears things up! - Andrew Marc Greene Chairman, Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) MIT Project Athena Watchmaker ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 90 15:26:17 GMT From: Martin Ward Subject: TeX, \tempcount Keywords: TeX, \tempcount The following is from TeXhax V90 #30: \newcount\tempcount \newcount\ref \tempcount=1 \ref=2 % \advance\tempcount by 2\ifnum\tempcount<\ref \message$\noexpand\tempcount Tests Less than \number\ref. Its actual value is \number\tempcount.\fi \end If TeXed the message "\tempcount Tests Less than 2. Its actual value is 3." is displayed. The poster noted that a blank space between the 2 and \ifnum caused the code to work as expected. The reason is that \tempcount starts with the value 1, then the \advance is scanned. Before the \advance can be executed, the number must be fully scanned. This means that (unless the space is inserted) the \ifnum must be scanned so that the end of the number 2 can be detected. However, scanning the \ifnum also causes the following \tempcount<\ref to be scanned and evaluated. As the \advance has not yet been evaluated (we are still detecting the end of the 2) \tempcount has the value 1 and \ref has the value 2. So the \ifnum test is true. Now at last, TeX can finish off the \advance command and increment the value of \tempcount to 3. The \ifnum test has already been evaluated to true, so the \message command is scanned and evaluated, displaying the message given above. Simple huh? Moral: ALWAYS put a space after a numeric constant (unless you really want the next command to add more digits to the constant, or to be evaluated before the constant). It is often more efficient as well as giving more intuitive results. Martin. My ARPANET address is: martin%EASBY.DUR.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU OR: martin%uk.ac.dur.easby@nfsnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP:...!mcvax!ukc!easby!martin JANET: martin@uk.ac.dur.easby BITNET: IN%"MARTIN@EASBY.DURHAM.AC.UK" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 90 08:54 MET From: "Johannes L. Braams" Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V90 #30, Numeric constants and \if conditionals Keywords: numeric constants, conditionals Hi, Salvatore Saieva writes about a problem with counters and \if-statements in TeX. This has been discussed before, I don't remember exactly when. What I do remember from the discussion though is that TeX scans ahaed when he encounters a number. This is to determine where the number ends. The result in this case is that at the time of the evaluation of the \ifnum-statement in the TeX-code shown below \tempcount still has the value 1. \newcount \tempcount\newcount\ref \tempcount=1 \ref=2 % \advance\tempcount by 2\ifnum\tempcount<\ref \message{\noexpand\tempcount Tests Less than \number\ref. Its actual value is \number\tempcount.}\fi \end At the time of the processing of the \message TeX has decided that the `2' wasn't followed by any more numerals or macro's which evaluate to numerals, so he has executed the \advance-statement and \tempcount has the value 3. This results in the `erroneous' behaviour of TeX telling you that 3 is smaller than 2. All this can be repaired by adding a \relax, like: \newcount \tempcount\newcount\ref \tempcount=1 \ref=2 % \advance\tempcount by 2\relax\ifnum\tempcount<\ref % ~~~~~~ \message{\noexpand\tempcount Tests Less than \number\ref. Its actual value is \number\tempcount.}\fi \end Hope this clears your problems, Regards, Johannes Braams PTT Research Neher Laboratorium, P.O. box 421, 2260 AK Leidschendam, The Netherlands. Phone : +31 70 3325051 E-mail : JL_Braams@pttrnl.nl E-mail was : EARN/BITnet : BRAAMS@HLSDNL5 UUCP : hp4nl!dnlunx!johannes SURFnet : DNLTS::BRAAMS INTERnet : BRAAMS%HLSDNL5@CUNYVM.cuny.edu PSS (DATAnet1) : +204 1170358::BRAAMS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 90 18:57:59 GMT From: Alan.Jeffrey%prg.oxford.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Odd MF behaviour revisted Keywords: METAFONT In TeXhax digest #22, I reported some rather odd behaviour to do with nested addto's in METAFONT. Chris Thompson replied, saying Your effect is still there in MF 1.9, and it is a bug. The problem is that |do_add_to| (section 1059) saves the type of addto ('contour', 'doublepath', or 'also') in the global variable |cur_path_type| (section 403) with atrocious consequences if two addto's are active simultaneously. I then said to him Thanks for replying so quickly. I thought the problem was with |cur_path_type| being global, but I don't know my way around MF---The Program well enough to have said so in TeXhax. This effect actually came up in a real MF program, which I'm writing up for TUGboat at the moment---which included a command `safe...endsafe' so that safe; draw ...; fill ...; etc... endsafe; would obey all the draw and fill commands, only with turningcheck set to 0, and a cull done to turn any points filled negatively to black ink. This worked by making currentpicture a local variable to `safe...unsafe' and adding the result back to currentpicture, that is: def safe = addto currentpicture also begingroup save currentpicture; picture currentpicture; currentpicture:=nullpicture; interim turningcheck:=0 enddef; def endsafe = cull currentpicture dropping (0,0); currentpicture endgroup enddef; Only this ends up with nested `addto's, and we're back to the beginning again. Today (Mar 20), I got some email from Barbara Beeton confirming that it's a bug and that DEK has been informed. Alan Jeffrey Programming Research Group Oxford Alan.Jeffrey@uk.ac.ox.prg (JANet) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% Further information about the TeXhax Digest, the TeX %%% Users Group, and the latest software versions is available %%% in every tenth issue of the TeXhax Digest. %%% %%% Concerning subscriptions, address changes, unsubscribing: %%% %%% BITNET: send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@xxx %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L % to subscribe %%% or UNSUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% %%% Internet: send a similar one line mail message to %%% TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu %%% JANET users may choose to use %%% texhax-request@uk.ac.nsf %%% All submissions to: TeXhax@cs.washington.edu %%% %%% Back issues available for FTPing as: %%% machine: directory: filename: %%% JUNE.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU TeXhax/TeXhaxyy.nn %%% yy = last two digits of current year %%% nn = issue number %%% %%%\bye %%% End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------