Contents of The plain base

The `plain` base

The plain base provides the commands that The ${\mfsl META}$ ${\mfsl FONT\/}$ book describes. (See Appendix B of The ${\mfsl META}$ ${\mfsl FONT\/}$ book, if you have it around — maybe a library has it — I'm learning from a copy borrowed from the local university's library.)

When it starts, automatically loads³the plain base. This is usually called plain.base, or sometimes only (see subsection for why this works) mf.base, although for those systems concerned (such as UNIX), both file names should really be present.

EmTEX for MS-DOS calls the plain base plain.bas, due to filename truncation.