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+\def\mwc{{\sc mwc}}\def\bc{{\sc bc}}
+\centerline{\bf The Pres says\dots}
+\medskip
+\noindent
+One of the advantages of the Exeter `Advanced' course
+was the presence of the current TUG President,
+Bart Childs. Bart is from the Computer Science
+Department at Texas A\&M (Aggies and Mechs) University.
+One of the areas that \TeX\ and TUG are rather
+weak in is that of background. The tiny bits of
+real `people-information' which sneaks into TUGboat,
+or the flyleaf of one of the books is slight. Perhaps
+{\it email} goes closest to revealing what goes on
+beneath the academic fa\c cade. As a very first attempt
+to put a little more flesh on the bones of \TeX, TUG
+and TUG's President, this is the contents of an
+interview with Bart (rather late one evening, and
+after a few beers). It would be great to think it
+is the first of many such interviews, but that all
+depends. This particular interview
+touches briefly on the events which led to
+Bart becoming President, and gives a view
+from the President's desk (or rather, his
+Data General laptop microcomputer --- running
+pc\TeX\ and a preview). One last note: you may
+notice that Bart sounds a bit like me here. I
+haven't been able to transfer the Texan drawl.
+The content is faithful in spirit to what was said, although
+the accent and delivery have been transmuted.
+It is therefore closer to a meta-interview.
+\smallskip
+\noindent \mwc: How did you get into this?
+
+\noindent \bc: We had a simple word processing system, for which
+I had drawn up
+the specification, and since we also had the source code, I had
+modified it to handle some extensions into more mathematical work.
+I thought it was really neat, but Norman Naugle said
+``hold everything ---
+have you seen \TeX?'' So I held everything and saw \TeX.
+This was in
+'78. I was impressed, threw away all the
+stuff I had been doing, and we decided to implement \TeX,
+from the SAIL version which was currently
+available. But before we started we sent a grad student to Stanford
+to the TUG meeting that fall and he came back saying
+``hold everything ---
+wait until the {\tt WEB} release!''
+So we waited a while for the {\tt WEB}
+release. I actually started with version 0.6,
+and had slowly begun to make some
+progress with it, building tangle and the tangle.change when
+version 0.9 arrived. We started with it on a Thursday afternoon,
+and by the Saturday
+night it had all been created. From there we went on to
+develop the QMS Lasergrafix driver.
+At the next TUG meeting Norman
+Naugle volunteered Texas A\&M to be the Prime and DG distributors
+for \TeX. Fairly soon after,
+John Crawford of Ohio State University
+took over the Prime distribution and we concentrated
+on the DG.
+We are still doing \TeX\ implementations:
+currently I'm working on a Cray version, under CTSS.
+
+
+Norman was still busy volunteering of course,
+and at another TUG meeting,
+Norman volunteered me for President.
+
+As President, I feel it is important for \TeX\ and TUG to be as
+public domain as possible, which helps to explain our
+dependence on ``academics'' in the major office bearing jobs.
+But much of the success of TUG (and \TeX) lies in the good
+support it has had from commercial organisations,
+like Addison-Wesley, Personal \TeX, Kellerman \& Smith, and ArborText.
+\smallskip
+\noindent \mwc: What of the future?
+
+\noindent \bc: Systems like NBI, Interleaf and Ventura may well
+adopt \TeX\ and SGML for the layout and structure
+functions of documents.
+ArborText's Publisher is a notable step in this direction,
+incorporating both \TeX\ and \SGML. The advantage of \TeX, as
+Don Knuth noted, is its quality, and, no less important,
+its archival capabilities. It is available on a huge
+range of systems, and in 20 years the same document
+will still produce the same end results.
+\smallskip
+\noindent \mwc: Will \TeX\ be unchanged in 20 years?
+
+\noindent \bc: No, but the changes will be to the front end --- the face
+that \TeX\ presents, and there will be extensions through the
+use of `specials' to colour and graphics.
+\TeX\ itself will remain the same.
+
+As an example of `front-ends', we have a \TeX\ system on
+our local Data General machine, Kinder\TeX. This provides
+a menu-driven front end, which, among other things, provides
+tailored editing functions, so that the function keys
+can be used for standard \TeX\ control sequences. We have
+tried to tie things together so that the interface is
+consistent, and we hope, fairly intuitive.
+
+One of the issues which I am keen for TUG (and all \TeX\ users)
+to debate is that of standards --- notably standards for specials.
+For example, how to handle the arguments. I am currently working with
+an approach through QUIC (the QMS laser printer language)
+and a device neutral
+meta file to a graphics dvi which would allow output to
+QMS, naked Canon, ATI, and later, PostScript.
+\smallskip
+\noindent \mwc: What is TUG's role?
+
+ \noindent \bc: TUG will have a major
+role to play in establishing standards for \TeX\ distribution.
+The public domain releases should include, at the least,
+\TeX, Metafont and the Computer Modern fonts. Standards should be
+created for the smaller versions, like the commercial
+micro releases, where there is obviously
+a constraint on the amount of material you can include.
+Driver standards need to be established (to include
+features like graphics, landscape and portrait mode etc.),
+and to be verified
+by a trip test.
+
+Education is needed to ensure that driver writers are
+incorporating the `position correction' for pixel boundaries,
+to ensure that
+dvi really is device independent. The font scaling problem in
+\LaTeX\ and \SliTeX\ needs
+to be addressed, and the solution made available.
+The distribution of this
+sort of information must not depend on academic networks.
+
+The continued financial strength of TUG will enable us to
+initiate new services, like
+a \TeX
+\break
+\noindent `helpdesk': this requires some
+staff increase at TUG, which should have
+happened by now. There will be greater separation from the AMS,
+another reflection of the strength and autonomy of TUG.
+\smallskip
+\noindent \mwc: Any crystal ball forecasts?
+
+\noindent \bc: \TeX\ already exists in Pascal and C realisations.
+It is likely that other languages will be used, like Ada and Lisp.
+But far more likely, and more useful to individual \TeX\ users
+will be the more general and widespread adoption of
+\TeX\ `environments',
+where \TeX\ can be given a far friendlier face, with menu driven
+options, the use of function keys, icons, \SGML\ tags,
+and exploitation of the underlying operating system, for example to
+allow the user the capability of exiting to command mode level
+(particularly useful if you get the `file not found message'), or
+to have
+the ability to fork off other processes while \TeX\ is running.
+For example, there is no real reason why a preview could not
+be running together with \TeX, so that once a page has been
+through \TeX\ and a dvi produced, the preview driver couldn't
+pick up that first page and display it. In general, proofing
+a preview page takes much longer than producing the dvi, so
+\TeX\ would always be ahead of you, once the first page had
+been produced.
+We may also expect to see \TeX\ in a distributed environment,
+where a `mainframe' handles the \TeX ing, but features
+like editing, preview, etc, are handled locally on
+a workstation. Preview itself should improve, with large high resolution
+(say 300dpi) screens.
+
+The use of colour is inevitable, and also mixed media.
+And looking to another fashionable area,
+we will probably see \TeX\ incorporated into hypertext applications.
+There is no reason why film shouldn't run from within \TeX,
+so that text viewed on a screen could include a diagram
+of an object which rotated, or a manual
+could have `exploded' views which really
+did seem to explode!
+
+Lastly, we should not ignore \MF.
+\MF\ is becoming a more mature piece of software,
+and we should begin to see
+more tools available for it, in particular
+to allow pixel editing in order to tune fonts.