| 02:36 | hapax | asciilifeform: if you don't mind spoilers, it generates knuthian "dvi" files (the included dvitype utility basically disassembles the file, so possible to play with and see how tex reacts to various inputs) |
| 02:37 | hapax | metafont, on the other hand, basically bakes rasters out of font definitions (along with font metrics), but you have to fine-tune it for your printer |
| 02:38 | hapax | modes even have parameters like additional blackness, compensation for fillin, reduction in overshoot . . . |
| 02:39 | hapax | i once wrote a converter to bmp, both formats are documented in the sources (if you install tex, weave the sources and find a suitable dvi2pdf converter, can even read the specs in their full glory!) |
| 02:42 | hapax | entirely possible to bake a dos dvi reader, would have to tune mf for display and just render the rasters and rules according to instructions (format is easy, basically "put a character 15 in current font," "skip down," "draw a rule," etc.) |
| 02:48 | hapax | metafont itself can render fonts when you work with them, my implementation talks to the graph unit (compatible with borland's), so it's possible to check out the characters (fun fact: without any modifications, works best on mswin, graph even happily allocated an entire 1080p screen, but entirely possible on dos as well i |
| 02:50 | hapax | f you're really nice to your ega during initialization) |