TeX /tekh/ n. An extremely powerful macro-based text formatter
   written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the computer-science
   community (it is good enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other
   favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on
   the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all
   caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
   mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
   devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such as
   TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster (competent
   TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also CrApTeX.

   Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality
   of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer
   Programming" (see Knuth, also bible). In a manifestation of the
   typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for all, he
   began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he would finish
   it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The
   language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The Art of
   Computer Programming" is not expected to appear until 2002. The impact
   and influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this very
   much. Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of
   toolsmithing on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was
   simply on a grander scale than most.

   TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
   high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary awards to anyone who
   found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as the
   years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even
   harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is so large
   (and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to have
   unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been compiled
   with.

	

	TeX
     
         /tekh/ An extremely powerful macro-based text
        formatter written by Donald Knuth, very popular in academia,
        especially in the computer-science community (it is good
        enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other favoured
        formatter, even at many Unix installations).
     
        The first version of TeX was written in the programming
        language SAIL, to run on a PDP-10 under Stanford's WAITS
        operating system.
     
        Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
        quality of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental
        "Art of Computer Programming" (see Knuth, also bible).  In
        a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the
        problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his own
        typesetting language.  He thought he would finish it on his
        sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years.  The
        language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The
        Art of Computer Programming" has yet to appear as of mid-1997.
        (However, the third edition of volumes I and II have come
        out).  The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such
        that nobody minds this very much.  Many grand hackish projects
        have started as a bit of toolsmithing on the way to
        something else; Knuth's diversion was simply on a grander
        scale than most.
     
        Guy Steele happened to be at Stanford during the summer of
        1978, when Knuth was developing his first version of TeX.
        When he returned to MIT that fall, he rewrote TeX's I/O to
        run under ITS.
     
        TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
        high-quality software.  Knuth offers monetary awards to people
        who find and report a bug in it: for each bug the award is
        doubled.  (This has not made Knuth poor, however, as there
        have been very few bugs and in any case a cheque proving that
        the owner found a bug in TeX is rarely cashed).  Though
        well-written, TeX is so large (and so full of cutting edge
        technique) that it is said to have unearthed at least one bug
        in every Pascal system it has been compiled with.
     
        TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and
        the correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E
        depressed below the baseline; the mixed-case "TeX" is
        considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices).
        Fans like to proliferate names from the word "TeX" - such as
        TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster
        (competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique.
     
        Several document processing systems are based on TeX, notably
        LaTeX Lamport TeX - incorporates document styles for books,
        letters, slides, etc., jadeTeX uses TeX as a backend for
        printing from James' DSSSL Engine, and Texinfo, the GNU
        document processing system.  Numerous extensions to TeX exist,
        among them BibTeX for bibliographies (distributed with
        LaTeX), PDFTeX modifies TeX to produce PDF and Omega
        extends TeX to use the Unicode character set.
     
        For some reason, TeX uses its own variant of the point, the
        TeX point.
     
        See also Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.
     
        (ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/tex/).
     
        E-mail:  (TeX User's group, Oregon, USA).
     
        (2002-03-11)