[pdftex] Plain TeX commands.

[Sebastian Rahtz]

John R. Culleton wrote:

>
>Perhaps I was unclear. I am concerned with the specific "as
>distributed" pdftex program, the one I get when I type 
>
>pdftex foo.tex.
>  
>
what happens here depends on which TeX distribution you install.
it is not determined by the maintainers of pdfTeX.

>In that package I find that most plain tex commands still work. For
>example \bye is really a plain tex macro, and not a primitive.
>Yet it seems to work. 
>  
>
indeed. its conventional to bind "pdftex" to "pdftex + preloaded plain 
format".
that's what I expect you to get

>It is entirely possible that the pdftex program as distributed
>has all the plain tex commands included,  But maybe it has only a
>subset of plain tex.  
>  
>
I am not aware of anyone who has prepared a subset of plain.tex.
It would seem slightly perverse.

-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      
Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
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