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TeX 1995 July
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TeX CD-ROM July 1995 (Disc 1)(Walnut Creek)(1995).ISO
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README
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1990-02-11
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The "committee" font is the end product of the font-design
class held at Stanford in the spring of 1984 (described in
second issue of Volume 5 (1984) of TUGboat). It is included
to be an example of how the new METAFONT language is used.
It does NOT require the PLAIN base to be loaded --- it has
it's own base (font1base.mf) file to work from, and needs to
be edited to set it up for a specific output device resolution
and point size, or to produce proof sheets.
Falls jemand nicht so gut im Englischen ist: Dieser "committee"-Zeichensatz
entstand während eines Font-Design-Kurses an der Stanford University (als
eine der Übungsaufgaben). Die PLAIN-Base wird NICHT benötigt, font1base.mf
ersetzt sie völlig. Für spezielle Geräteauflösungen, Grö₧en oder Testaus-
drucke ("proof sheets") mu₧ font1.mf geändert werden!
Schlie₧lich noch ein paar Zeilen von Donald Knuth aus der TUGboat, Volume 5
(1984), No. 2, die etwas mehr über den Zeichensatz aussagen:
(...) My luck held good throughout the quarter, as new pieces of the
language [METAFONT] would begin to work just about two [!] days before
I needed to discuss them in class. That gave me one day to get some
programming experience before I was supposed to teach everybody else
how to write good programs themselves.
(...) The fourth homework assignment was much more interesting, and we
called it ``Font 1.'' The class created a new typeface with a sans-serif,
calligraphic flavor; we had just enough people who had completed Home-
work #3 so that everybody could be assigned the task of creating one
uppercase letter and one lowercase letter. I presented an uppercase `U'
and lowercase `l' as examples that would help to set the style; but of
course each student had a personal style that was reflected in the
results, and there wasn't much unity in our final font. This fact was
instructive in itself.
I had prepared two METAFONT macros to draw penlike strokes and arcs, and
the students were required to draw everything with those two subroutines.
This was a signification limitation, but it helped to focus everyone's
attention by narrowing the possibilities. The students were also learning
the concepts of meta-design at this time, because their programs were
supposed to be written in terms of parameters so that three different
fonts would be produced: normal, bold and bold extended. This gave every-
one a taste of METAFONT's algebraic capabilities, in which the computer
plays a crucial rôle in the development of one's design.
(...) As I said, we didn't expect Font 1 to have any unity, but I was
pleased that many of the individual characters turned out to be quite
beautiful even when the parameters were changed to values that the
students had not tried.