Re: lout for pc?

[Bennett Todd]

> I would like to know if anyone has an msdos or 
> microsoft windows based executable of lout. This coupled with
> a postscript previewer (ghostscript) and emacs would be an ideal
> combination for text formating on the pc.

I guess that would depend on the PC. Given a powerful-enough PC, well, OK,
maybe. But I run Linux _just_ _fine_ on a 386SX-16 with 4MB --- but lout
performs like a dog on that config. Takes hours and hours to format the
manuals.

By contrast, LaTeX (the sbtex port) works quite useably, _much_ faster, on a
4.77MHz 8088. And the straight Unix LaTeX works really fast on my little
Linux box.

I've heard that with enough memory, lout can typeset docs up near the speed
of TeX (maybe half the speed, rather than like 1/20). But I don't think the
current Lout implementation is an attractive alternative for a PC. If you've
got enough horses for Lout, give the hardware a real OS, at which point it's
a workstation.

-Bennett
address@hidden