Are the original CM fonts better than the current type1 fonts?

Question

What are the differences between the original (rasterized) CM fonts and the current (smooth PDF-friendly) type1 versions of these fonts?

It seems to me that the originals are much better looking. They are "thicker". You can clearly see the difference in printed output. The type1 ones are somewhat "thinner".

Why is this? Why aren't they exactly the same?

And final question: On a modern MacTeX distribution (on my Mac OS X), how can I compile my document with the older fonts?

Update: I feel the current answers haven't answered some of the sub-questions and, more importantly, haven't provided the proper understanding that I'm looking for. The question can be rephrased: I look at "Digital Typography" by Knuth and a recent mathematics book on my shelf. Both are clearly printed in very high resolution—the fonts are smooth and look how they are supposed to look. But the font in Knuth's book is far more "thicker" and has a much more warmer, juicier, and nicer feel to it. On the other hand, I recognize the font in the mathematics book as the modern ubiquitous "smooth type1" CM font. In comparison to the font in Knuth's book, it looks thin and pale. I'm looking for some foundational understanding for why this is the case and why it turned out this way. Any font experts in here?

Answer 1

sorry, @Herbert, the image doesn't say it all.

what was neglected in the description is that metafont was run at a particular resolution to produce the first image, which, when scaled up, shows the artifacts of bitmapping.

here is a counterexample, adding in to your first test the type 1 cm fonts scaled in the "plain tex manner", along with the file that produced it. during the tex run, mf was launched automatically, with this report:

kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode / --bdpi 600 --mag 1+0/600 --dpi 6000 cmr10
mktexpk: Running mf-nowin -progname=mf \mode:=ljfour; mag:=10+0/600; nonstopmode; input cmr10
This is METAFONT, Version 2.718281 (TeX Live 2010)

the output:

that said, it's possible to see small differences -- the right-hand stem of the M and the stem of the R look thicker in the cm than in the lm. so i conclude that the type 1 cm fonts are more "true" to the original mf cm than are the lm fonts; nearly everyone these days except knuth uses the lm fonts because they're superior in many ways for work in languages other than english.

for folks who want to try this out for themselves without retyping, here's the input code; i didn't realize it wasn't possible to cut-and-paste from an embedded pdf image. (i included the code as "proof" that it was exactly what produced this output.)

\documentclass{article}
\pdfmapfile{lm.map}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{verbatim}

\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\noindent
\scalebox{10}{CMR}\\[10pt]
\font\bigfont cmr10 at 100pt
\bigfont CMR\\[10pt]
\fontfamily{lmr}\selectfont
\scalebox{10}{CMRL}

\vspace{2\baselineskip}
\verbatiminput{\jobname.tex}
\end{document}

Answer 2

The image says it all ...

\documentclass{article}
\pdfmapfile{lm.map}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\scalebox{10}{CMR}
\fontfamily{lmr}\selectfont
\scalebox{10}{LMR}

\end{document}  

or the same with only cm fonts:

\documentclass{article}
\pdfmapfile{cm-super-t1.map}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\scalebox{10}{CMR}
\fontencoding{T1}\selectfont
\scalebox{10}{CMR}

\end{document}    

Answer 3

Take a look at question (and the answers) Fatter Computer Modern. Basically, the reason is that, for a given outline, the Metafont rasterizer produces a "fatter" set of pixels than the current Postscript and PDF rasterizers. And, with Metafont, you can even tune the rasterization to the properties of the printer.

Answer 4

The original Metafont fonts are most likely better if they are used at their design size with the correct Metafont mode for the current output device: Metafont is probably the best rasterizer there is (it has been designed by DEK, after all). The type1 fonts may be better at other type sizes. But I doubt that many people still use the Metafont fonts; today we mostly create PDF.