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Re: archiving format contest: .dvi versus .tex and .ps (2)



larry siebenmann says:
    The msxm and msym fonts are *recently* outdated.

1986 is recent???  maybe on the 100-year timescale ...

and:
    Since msam, msbm were not based on 1982 metafont, they are
    non-standard stragglers.

there isn't any "1982 metafont".  there was mf79, in sail, and mf84,
in web.  msxm and mxym were created in mf79 -- *not* current, and *not*
reconstructable.  msam and msbm are constructed according to mf84.
i fail to see why they should be considered "non-standard stragglers".
i am confused ...

at ams, we are doing our best to make sure they are as robust, dependable,
and of the same archival quality as the cm* fonts.  i do believe the ams
can be considered to have a "scientific archive", although we don't keep
documents in .dvi form.  we're not concerned that msam and msbm will
become unreliable, and we *do* expect to re-use many of these documents.

the recommendation to substitute msam and msbm when msxm and msym are
called for is sound; there were (other than the shape change in the
blackboard bold) only a few minor changes between the two pairs of
fonts: one or two duplicated glyphs were removed, and several empty
cells were filled in.  the most serious problem is likely to be small
differences in metrics, and of course, a checksum mismatch.

and thanks, larry, for the cautionary note to the developers of the
new 256-character math fonts.  nobody wants existing files to suddenly
become unprocessable.
						-- bb