(fontname.info)History

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1.1 History
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The original inspiration for Fontname was Frank Mittelbach and Rainer
Schoepf's article in `TUGboat' 11(2) (June 1990), which led to my
article in `TUGboat' 11(4) (November 1990), pages 512-519.  Mittelbach
wrote another article criticizing the scheme below in `TUGboat' 13(1)
(April 1992), pages 51-53; most of his points are well-taken, but I saw
no alternative then, and see no alternative now.  Others of his points
are addressed in the appropriate sections below.

   In August 1995, Fontname version 2 was released, concomitantly with
a new release of the PostScript fonts for use with LaTeX and Dvips.
After several years of experience, several modifications of the original
distribution seemed desirable: more precise specification of encodings
(Note: Variants); machine-readable mapping files (the `*.map' files
in the distribution) and standardizing directory names as well as font
filenames (included in `supplier.map' and `typeface.map').

   In Fontname version 1, some encoding variant characters (`0', `2',
etc.) have been reassigned to a `7' or `8' sequence (Note: Variants).
Although this is an incompatible change, the advantages of (1)
consistency in naming encoding variants, and (2) having some free
variants makes it worthwhile.  Also, not so coincidentally, new metrics
for PostScript fonts in the Cork encoding were issued--same encoding,
different metrics. So a new name served a practical purpose as well.

   Many people have contributed to this work.  In particular, I
gratefully acknowledge Nelson Beebe, Barbara Beeton, Rocky Bernstein,
Thierry Bouche, Damian Cugley, Berthold K.P. Horn, Alan Jeffrey,
Russell Lang, Pierre MacKay, Sebastian Rahtz, Jean Rivlin, and Tom
Rokicki.