MF ==> (PS type1)

[Laurent Siebenmann <lcs@topo.math.u-psud.fr>]

      ***  Malyshev's  MF ==> (PS type1)  is important  ***

 > In replying to me (indented), Berthold Horn wrote:
 > 
 >         I suspect that Malyshev has made substantial progress
 >         in automating MF ==> PS type1 conversion.  
 > 
 > You are joking right?  
 > Why would he put any effort into this, particularly now.
 > 
 >         I would hope
 >         that these improvements will mean that METAFONT can
 >         finally play a serious role as a PS type1 type design
 >         tool.  (This has not even been mooted on the MF list.
 >         Why?)
 > 
 > You are joking right? MF will never be a typographers design
 > tool. Only a few geniuses have ever more or less masters it
 > DEK is one, and maybe Yannis is another.

Neena Bulawaya (sp?),  Damian Cugley, Yannis Haralambous, Doug
Henderson, Bogislav Jakowsky, Silvio Levy, Joerg Knappen, Pierre
Mackay, Ralph Smith, Goergia Tobin, and other accomplished metafont
programmer-artists are surely flattered to hear they have a rare
genius (far from me to deny it!).  However my own thought was that
they would be happier still to have a smooth path on which to take
their fonts to the widest possible public and so declare
their genius where the all the world can take notice.

>From my own scientist's point of view, I note that essentially all
math fonts usable with TeX originate in Metafont and all too
often remain there.  For example I want the lamstex arrow fonts in
type1 since they are the one arrow font set I know that is
stylisticly compatible with with CM. Also, I want
Ralph Smith's Formal Script as a Math Caligraphic, and as a luxury
Yannis Haralambous' math extensions. That is three small math
"meta-fonts" important to me but marooned in Metafont format. There
are probably many more, especially when one widens the scope to
logic, physics, chemistry, and beyond. If Malyshev's MF ==> (PS
type1) conversion were fully published, such problems would be
readily solved.

Let me anticipate the familiar cry that we are all tired of
sober-sided CM and its cousins and should be moving on to world
class PostScript designs, beginning with budget-fitting Times &
MathTime.  Well, there is one detail you all aught to know: MathTime
was originally done in MetaFont by Georgia Tobin of MetaFoundry
fame.

As absolute last resort in the small Type 1 world, one has Lucida
Math by Biggelow & Holmes. But isn't there a Metafont ancestry
there too?

So I am saying Berthold has it quite wrong. Now that he no longer
has substantial financial interest in type1 renditions of freely
available Metafont series, he can afford to welcome the
"coming-out" of Knuth's Metafont via Malyshev's MF ==> (PS type1).

                        Cheers

                              Larry S