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+Received: from robin by clan.nott.ac.uk id aa02511; 3 Mar 89 9:53 PST
+Received: from nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk by much.Cs.Nott.AC.UK id aa17670;
+ 3 Mar 89 17:50 GMT
+Received: from vax02.ams.com by NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK via Satnet with SMTP
+ id aa08564; 3 Mar 89 16:30 GMT
+Date: Fri 3 Mar 89 10:58:54-EST
+From: bbeeton <BNB@vax02.ams.com>
+Subject: Announcement of TeX 2.96-2.98; other details
+To: TeX-implementors@vax02.ams.com
+Message-ID: <604943934.0.BNB@VAX02.AMS.COM>
+Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(229)+TOPSLIB(132)+PONY(205)@VAX02.AMS.COM>
+
+Date: 3 Mar 89 Message No: 013
+
+To: TeX implementors and distributors
+
+From: Barbara Beeton
+
+Subject: Announcement of TeX 2.96-2.98; other details
+
+
+Some of you are already aware that there exist versions of TeX beyond
+2.95. Although I have had that information for some time, lack of time
+and hardware problems have prevented me from obtaining all the details
+and sending them out to you. This morning I received from Don Knuth a
+report that another bug has been found and fixed, bring the version to
+2.98. Since I am leaving tomorrow morning for a week of standards
+meetings (where I will not have any computer access), and don't have
+time before I leave to retrieve the details from Knuth's computer, I
+will instead include Knuth's description of the reasons for the changes,
+and promise to send the details as soon as possible after I return.
+
+In one of the last few messages, there was a reference in the ERRATA.TeX
+extracts to an item, dated 12/23/88, that hadn't been sent to you. The
+missing errata are listed below, incorporating the item of 1/4/89 that
+cited the missing one. Needless to say, the additional bug fixes will
+involve more errata; those will be sent along with the bug details.
+
+
+########################################################################
+
+Knuth's descriptions of the changes
+
+2.96:
+
+ [ I can't find the message from Knuth notifying me of the
+ update, but this is the information line in TEX.WEB. ]
+
+ % Version 2.96 corrects bug in "Infinite shrinkage" recovery (January 1989).
+
+
+2.97:
+
+ In TEX.WEB, there are one too many instances of:
+ @.End of file on the terminal@>
+
+ ... when I created version 2.95 in December, I made a bunch of changes
+ to ERRATA.TEX etc but I left out the most important change to TEX.WEB
+ itself! Namely, consider the following excerpt from TEX82.BUG[tex,dek]:
+
+349. By popular request, undo #347 and fix the bug a more complex way.
+@x module 71 [this undoes change #347]
+if not input_ln(term_in,true) then t_open_in;
+@y
+if not input_ln(term_in,true) then fatal_error("End of file on the terminal!");
+@z
+@x [and there's a lot more]
+
+ Well, I forgot to install that. So the index was right, but not the
+ program... At SAIL, I'm unable to test EOF on the terminal.
+
+ *** Folks, please excuse this dreadful oversight. The maintainers of TeX
+ must think I'm completely off my rocker. I have now fixed TEX.WEB at
+ SAIL, but not at SCORE or anywhere else. I've changed the version number
+ to 2.97 simply because there exist versions 2.95--2.96 in which this typo
+ is present. Version 2.97 is version 2.96 the way I thought 2.96 was.
+ (I also changed the version numbers in INITEX.CH and TRIP*.)
+
+
+2.98
+
+ Frank Mittelbach and Rainer Schoepf of Gutenberg's city (Mainz) have
+ discovered the following bug: If you say simply
+ \aftergroup\relax\dump
+ to INITEX, you get a spurious error message (one that David Siegel
+ used to tell me was pretty funny).
+
+ It was very easy to fix this bug, although I did have to change
+ TRIP.TEX as well as the other TRIP* files in order to make TRIP
+ verify its absence.
+
+ Another $163.84; am I really going to be able to double the amount
+ of reward next year?
+
+
+other questions:
+
+Wayne Sullivan sent the following inquiry about possible bugs in 2.95:
+
+ I think I have found two 'bugs' in TeX 2.95, athough it would be more
+ apt to call them 'mites' rather than bugs, for they have no effect on
+ practically all existing installations of TeX. The first is that there
+ is to my knowledge no fixed limit on the actual size of font_area or
+ font_name for a given font. If either of these exceeded 255 bytes in
+ length, the an invalid DVI file could result. The second is that
+ get_strings_started calls make_string before the value of init_str_ptr
+ is set. In the event of overflow, init_str_ptr is used before it has
+ been defined.
+
+Knuth's reply:
+
+ ... I looked at this and decided they were NOT bugs.
+
+ 1) We could make TeX guarantee that font area and font name be at most
+ 255 bytes long, by putting the following code into module 560 just
+ after "g\gets null_font":
+ if (length(nom)>255) or (length(aire)>255) then
+ begin print_err("Font name too long");
+ help1("I've substituted \nullfont for a weird font name.");
+ error; goto done;
+ end;
+ But, the DVI problem could arise only if TeX was able to read a valid
+ TFM file with an unreasonably long name and area. If we assume that the
+ operating system doesn't break, nobody would be able to use this font
+ anyway from a DVI file, so I claim such a TFM file will never exist in
+ a real system.
+
+ 2) It's true that INITEX uses string_vacancies to abort with an
+ understandable error message if the implementor has set pool_size too low,
+ while INITEX can abort strangely if the implementor has set max_strings
+ too low. (The problem in that case is even worse than Mr Sullivan imagines:
+ The string "number of strings" may not even be present, nor would its
+ array index necessarily be valid.) But an implementor who is that stupid
+ doesn't deserve having his hand held....
+
+ I conclude that no changes to 2.95 are needed (yet).
+
+
+########################################################################
+
+Extracts from ERRATA.TeX (differences effective Dec 88)
+
+;COMPARISON OF PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.TEX.17 AND PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.NEW.2
+;OPTIONS ARE /3
+
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.TEX.17, 4-34 (21096)
+\bugonpage C262, line 15 (11/6/88)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+|string base_name, base_version; base_name="plain"; base_version="1.6";|
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.NEW.2, 4-34 (21096)
+\bugonpage C262, line 15 (12/23/88)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+|string base_name, base_version; base_name="plain"; base_version="1.7";|
+
+\bugonpage C271, line 12 (1/4/89)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+the user and \MF's primitive picture commands.
+First, some important program\cutpar
+
+\bugonpage C271, line 4 from the bottom (12/23/88)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+|def |^|cutdraw|| expr p = % caution: you may need autorounding=0|
+
+\bugonpage C272, lines 5 and 6 (12/23/88)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+| (cut_ scaled (1+max(pen_lft,pen_rt,pen_top,pen_bot))|\par\noindent
+| rotated theta shifted z)t_;|
+
+\bugonpage C273, lines 20 and 22 (9/26/88)
+***************
+
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.TEX.17, 4-45 (21435)
+\bugonpage C331, just below the illustration (7/18/87)
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.NEW.2, 4-56 (21754)
+\bugonpage C290, line 6 from the bottom (12/23/88)
+
+\ninepoint\noindent
+(2)~A throwaway variable,
+`\\{whatever}', nullifies an unwanted equation at the beginning\cutpar
+
+\bugonpage C331, just below the illustration (7/18/87)
+***************
+
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.TEX.17, 4-57 (21758)
+\bugonpage C350, left column (7/6/88)
+**** FILE PS:<TEX.DOC>ERRATA.NEW.2, 4-74 (22253)
+\bugonpage C346, entry for {\tt autorounding} (12/23/88)
+
+\eightpoint\indent\hskip20pt
+212, {\it262}, {\it264}, 271--272.
+
+\bugonpage C350, left column (7/6/88)
+***************
+
+
+########################################################################
+
+
+[ end of message 013 ]
+-------