The history and origins of TeX and its variants, their applications, their supporting software (such as fonts or viewers), and their mythology and heraldry.
25
votes
5answers
712 views
Historical, stable version archive of packages
The author of marginfix / blockmargin is/was interested in a certain loss of functionality from one version of the marginfix package to the next. Out of interest and curiosity I wanted to see what ...
26
votes
1answer
954 views
Why does TeX have a lion as mascot?
This I have been wondering for years! And where else was I supposed to ask this if not here?
Maybe it is not a technical question but it might still interest a great many.
37
votes
3answers
1k views
TeX family tree with timeline?
When I first started using TeX, I felt overwhelmed by the myriad of names — BibTeX, XeTeX, LaTeX, XeLaTeX, ConTeXt, LuaTeX, MacTeX, TeXLive — and more. I didn't know the packages from the programs ...
34
votes
3answers
967 views
Who *doesn't* use e-TeX?
I was just browsing the new questions and noticed egreg's recent answer, in which he uses a certain extension from e-TeX and cautions the reader that it is not compatible with Knuth TeX. And so I ...
21
votes
3answers
786 views
TeX & Troff a reflection on the history of Computer Typography
I'm interested in relationship between two very important Computer Typography systems Troff and TeX. In particular, I would like to find any statements made by Donald Knuth about the influence (or ...
25
votes
2answers
752 views
What language is TeX implemented in?
I read on Wikipedia that the first version of TeX was written in SAIL. However, does anyone know what language later versions (i.e the current one) are implemented in?
9
votes
2answers
1k views
Why couldn't (La)TeX's layout model be as simple as CSS's layout model?
I feel CSS's layout model is simpler than (La)TeX's layout model. At the time Knuth developed TeX, the idea leading to CSS model is a "difficult" things? Or the CSS layout model is not appropriate to ...
