These Computer Modern afm files are made up by way of a METAFONT
compilation, and so represent Knuth's designs exactly.  I have
included everything but cmff10 cmfi10 cmfib10 and cminch.  You have to
draw the line somewhere.

No information that can be preserved is discarded.  I have invented names
for fontdimens that afm does not know about.  It is not likely that these
afms will be used anywhere where that would cause trouble, and maybe the
extra \fontdimens can teach by example.  Otherwise the files are as close
to Adobe conventions as possible.  If any character has a name in
the "Blue Book" that name is used, even when it differs from the
METAFONT name.

If you are wondering why Computer Modern afms should exist at all,
think of Alan Jeffrey's fontinst, and the manipulations it permits. I
have my own set of awk and sed scripts that do much the same.  PL
format contains more information than can be effectively stored in afm
format, but it is diffuse and difficult to read and edit.  One of the
most interesting applications for Computer Modern afms is to build up
virtual fonts using the basic CM fonts as the raw fonts.  You can get
almost, though not quite all, of DC encoding that way.  With the
addition of a few specially designed characters you can get all of DC
encoding at a much cheaper price in font storage than is entailed in
making up entirely separate DC fonts.  Besides that, you eliminate the
risk of creating dialect forms of Computer Modern characters.

For further information on gf2afm, a conversion system using
Bourne Shell, Awk and Sed scripts which was used to produce
these afm files, write to:

mackay@cs.washington.edu			Pierre A. MacKay
Smail:  Northwest Computing Support Center	Resident Druid for
	Thomson Hall, Mail Stop DR-10		Unix-flavored TeX
	University of Washington
	Seattle, WA 98195
	(206) 543-6259