Re: AFMs for Blue Sky CM/PS fonts...

["Melissa O'Neill" <oneill@cs.sfu.ca>]

> Barry Smith writes:
> We do have some around here (somewhere), but the Macintosh distribution
> is all we've put up so far, and I don't know of any Mac apps that use AFM
> files [except Textures ;].  (I don't understand Melissa's comments re
> separate distributions for ATM and Macintosh users.  Do I really need to?)

Berthold K.P. Horn in his Y&Y role provided Robin Fairbairns with a
PFB+PFM distribution to put up on CTAN. (An an aside, one or other of
them also downcased the names, which I think was a mistake, since I
believe it's best if the external file name matches the internal name
of the font).

> FWIW, our AFM files were created "after the fact", not in any way as
> part of the font production process; in fact they were created specifically
> because the NeXT font system required them for installation.

Surprise surprise, I'm on a NeXT. In fact, I don't think I'm really
need them (since I'm working with TeX/TeXview/dvips and not trying to
use them in other applications), but I think both NeXT, OS/2 and some
Unix users are used to seeing AFM files with their fonts.

> This sounds just excellent.  I know of nothing that should be different
> in the AFM files for these fonts.  (Except, perhaps, some of the comments
> identifying copyright, producer, version, etc.)

Well, in practice it looks like the only real difference between the
BaKoMa fonts and the BlueSky ones is that the BlueSky ones are freer,
since they're now in the public domain. I compared Metafont, BaKoMa
and BlueSky fonts on my aged 300dpi printer and on-screen on my NeXT
and couldn't find anything to recommend the BlueSky fonts over the
BaKoMa ones quality wise. This may be a shame or a triumph (depending
on your perspective), given the fact that hours of human effort went
into hinting the BlueSky fonts and a machine came up with the hints
for the BaKoMa ones. (*)

Later today I might compare the fonts under Acrobat and on a modern
600dpi printer.

   (*) Actually, it's probably a shame either way since Basil K. Malyshev's
       software is now languishing on a disk somewhere, untouched, unused,
       while the EC fonts are out there aching to be converted to type1
       format.

Regards,

    Melissa.

P.S. Hmm, it's 4:40am, so I guess I can't say this isn't something I'll
lose any sleep over. (And I only got up to let out the cat, oh well...)