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In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Mon, 30 Nov 1998 20:02:42 +0100." 
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Date:         Tue, 1 Dec 1998 09:25:50 +0000
From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: What is "base" LaTeX
Status: R

> Timothy Murphy wrote --
> > I am just looking at a very well printed old book (Hardy & Wright, 1954),
>
> That would be the Monotype 5-line as used by CUP I think?
>
> This is what Knuth would have emulated had he been working 5000 miles
> further east.
>
> > For one thing, they do things which would be difficult (for me) in LaTeX,
> > eg Theorem 6: with a displayed formula on the same line.
>
> A known deficiency (but this is not the right list:-).
>
> I have a much more recent, but pre-computers, CUP-printed book that is
> an amazing example of very tight math typography despite a large
> amount of in-line math (which usually messes up any attempt at godd
> typography): totally, mind-blowingly different from what we are used to
> now!

care to offer a title, so i can go and browse in the cup shop?  (or is
it out of print?)

> > It should be said that Hardy & Wright is an exception for its period.

does hardy & wright actually date from the 50s?  it seemed very `old
fashioned' (in terms of its content) to me as a 60s undergraduate.
lovely book, though...

> > Most of the research maths books of that vintage
> > were appallingly badly "printed" (usually typed).
>
> As early as that??: it is something I associate with the 60s: bring back
> the golf-ball!

i thought that, too.  but there _was_ good typesetting of maths
_textbooks_ in the 60s: it was just the monographs that looked crappy.
(unless they came from cup, that is: damned expensive they were...)

> > TeX has been responsible for
> > an immense increase in the average printing quality of maths books.
>
> Absolutely.  But it would be really serious fun (for everyone but
> sebastian:-) to try and emulate using TeX what CUP could do back then.

i wonder what proportion of the active members of this list are either
active (such as chris and tim) or ex- (such as me) mathematicians.
apart from sebastian, i can't think of many...

robin