Re: [9fans] off topic: troff book

[Andy Newman <atrn@zeta.org.au>]

(To those of us somewhat interesting in typesetting systems this has
been an interesting thread - thanks).   I have a reprint of an article
written for the AMS in 1978 entitled "Mathematical Typography" (Bulletin
(New Series) of the AMS, vol 1, no. 2, pp. 337-372), it says "This article
is the Josiah Willam Gibbs Lecture given by Mr.Knuth in February, 1978."
The first sentence is,

	"Mathematics books and journals do not look as beautiful
	 as they used to."

The lecture discusses some of the problems he and the AMS faced in
publishing, shows some different layout styles and launches into
an overview of the math problems in layout systems, line filling,
font and curve representations and anti-aliasing in raster systems.

At one point he states "...I know that TeX provides only small
refinements over what is available in other systems.  Yet several
dozen small refinements add up to something that is important to me..."

The article has an extensive bibliography that includes references
to eqn and papers on "....some experiments in typesetting physics
journals with the Bell Labs system...".  I.e, he knew.