[texhax] LaTeX in old computer

[Uwe Lück]

At 09:58 02.02.07, Chris Rowley wrote:
> > How many 386 and older machines are still running?
>
>I have a 286 setup that is still (I think) in full working order.
>
>Until about 2000 it was used regularly to test LaTeX releases.
>
>Back then we also supported a cut-down version of LaTeX with an
>autoload function for non-essential parts.  This was intended
>for very small memory TeX's.
>
>Chris Rowley  ---  On behalf of the LaTeX3 Project Team

Indeed, this cut-down version was the latexa format. ltnews16

     CTAN:/macros/latex/doc/ltnews16.pdf

(page 1) announced that it wouldn't be supported any longer.
That passage of ltnews16 says that the code will remain.
However, I can't find it. It seems to me that in fact you have
removed it entirely. (It still belonged to a MiKTeX distribution
in 2004.) I am unhappy with that, because I still like to
use my old small TeX installation on an Atari (now with
the TOSbox Atari emulator on an IBM machine).

The reason for not providing latexa anymore is,
according to ltnews16, something like "most" users have
recent machines which are able to run "large" TeX versions.
According to my experience, however, single persons
as well as institutions would like to use their old
machines as long as possible -- even when they buy
new ones. Therefore:

If you keep latex2.09 in the CTAN-obsolete directory,
why don't you offer latexa there? I assume that it is
a matter of about 15 minutes to make or change
a script (docstrip tags!?) that extracts the autoload version
from the most recent full-fledged version.

Cheers,

   Uwe.