[NTG-context] Re: Back in the 90s

[Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl>]

On 4/13/2024 2:12 PM, Riviera Taylor wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was reading about the history of ConTeXt in the Not So Short 
> Introduction To ConTeXt and I have a historical question. I noticed that 
> the PDF specification was published in 1993 yet ConTeXt was invented in 
> 1991. The book suggests that PDF output was handled by the PdfTeX engine 
> in MKII in 2005. What sort of output did the software produce before 
> PdfTeX was introduced? Was this the same as the output produced by the 
> software before the publication of the PDF specification?
2005 is when we started with luatex which is a follow up on pdftex, and 
pdftex is more a mid 90's thing; we immediately adopted pdftex (which 
made some believe that context depended on pdftex which is not true)

anyway, we started with dvi which needs a postprocessor to go to some 
printer format like specific hp or more general postscript but also can 
drive viewers

we went from epson dot matrix printer -> early 300 dpi laser -> 600 dpi 
laser printer -> high speed oce 512 dpi printer (metric) -> high speed 
oce 600 dpi printer (+ crappy canon color laser printer) -> fast 
page-wide hp color inkjet office printer

in mkii all is controlled by backend drivers, that use so called 
specials to support color, hyperlinks, images so a workflow can have

- dvipsone : high quality postscript
- dviwindo : viewer with typeone support and hyperlinks
- acrobat  : postscript to pdf

and as all these external backends have their demands we could handle 
all these things in an abstract way (that way one could also drive 
printer properties like duplex or paper bins etc from a tex job)

that meant that when pdf came around we could almost immediately support 
most of the interactive features in a dvi -> ps -> acrobat workflow

when pdftex came around the intermediate step of postscript could be 
avoided which btw was also possible with dvipdfm(x) so we also supported 
that

so to summarize, it went from

tex -> dvi -> printer format
tex -> dvi -> postscript -> more generic printer format
tex -> dvi -> pdf -> print from acrobat
tex -> pdf -> print from pdf viewer

in the meantime we are pdf (as from that one can produce other formats)

Hans

(btw, the fact that we could easily support pdf was also a reason why at 
that time some adobe folk in nl used documents produced by context to 
show somewhat extrems usage of interactive features, thanks to the fact 
that tex can adapt to such new situations, also via the dvi route in 
this case with pdfmarks; at that time pdf usage - and features - was a 
bit more dualistic: ps replacement format versus storage and preview 
format, but that's a different story; but it still shows in how the 
standard evolved)

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
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