🚀 go-pugleaf

     The font you mean is called "Univers" and is  available
from the Mergenthaler Linotype Stempel Haas digital typeface
library.  They just  got  through  changing  their  name  to
Allied  Linotype.   I  called  them up for information about
their new PostScript phototypesetters  mentioned  in  laser-
lovers.   Currently they sell the L300 (max 2540 lines/inch,
$34k + front end) and the L101 (max 1440 lines/inch, $23k  +
front end) which have PostScript buried inside (according to
the salesman), but do not support the  graphics  primitives.
The  newer P300 and P101 to be out in a few months will sup-
port the full  PostScript  language,  but  prices  were  not
available.   The front end terminal they require ranges from
$5k to $10k, but the salesman indicated that  sometime  they
will be selling a bare phototypesetter with a communications
port that accepts PostScript input.   The  fonts  themselves
are quite reasonable, each one selling for about $180 in the
complete range of sizes (1pt to 186pt, in steps of  .1  pt).
According  to  the  digital typeface directory that he left,
"Univers" comes in 18 fonts, from Univers Light  Ultra  Con-
densed  to  Univers  Black Extended. The directory is a fas-
cinating booklet to browse through, if you can get  a  copy.
It  gives  examples  of  over  1700  fonts  available in the
library.  I would guess all the Mergenthaler fonts should be
available  eventually  in  PostScript  form to download to a
LaserWriter, but they will  certainly  be  compressed  in  a
proprietary way, like Xerox does.   The salesman told me how
their fonts are designed on a base of about 400pt, but their
printers are restricted from printing at full design size to
keep people  from  printing  the  full  size  font  and  re-
digitizing.   Somehow  that is not feasible from the smaller
sizes because of a built in algorithm for  adjusting  stroke
weight, etc. as the size of the font varies.

     As far as using TeX on these machines, we need  a  .dvi
to  PostScript  translater  plus  a  release of all the font
metric info, kerning,  ligature,  etc.  information.   Also,
don't  plan  on  doing much math in the typical Merganthaler
font - it includes A-Z,a-z,0-9 and  .,;:'`&!?$,  and  that's
it.  They have six Universal Math fonts which, all together,
are much weaker than the plain TeX fonts.   They  must  have
more specialized math fonts available.

A. Lester Buck @ Shell Development Co.
{ihnp4, pur-ee, ut-sally}!shell!buck