The design of TEX and METAFONT: A retrospective
Nelson H. F. Beebe · 2005
This article looks back at the design of TEX and METAFONT, and analyzes how they were affected by architectures, operating systems, programming languages, and resource limits of the computing world at the time of their creation by a remarkable programmer and human being, Donald E. Knuth. This paper is dedicated to him, with deep gratitude for the continued inspiration and learning that I’ve received from his software, his scientific writing, and our occasional