# Things a texnician should know

1. Dec 15, 2005

### BobG

How much do $$T_E \chi$$nicians on PF actually know about $$T_E \chi$$.

For instance, version 3.0 was released in 1989 and is the last version of $$T_E \chi$$ that will be released. There have been several revisions to version 3.0, however, including 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, 3.14159 to fix bugs that have been detected by $$T_E \chi$$nicians.

The current revision of $$T_E \chi$$ is 3.141592. If you were lucky enough to be the next person to detect a bug in $$T_E \chi$$ you could claim the $327.68 award fee by notifying Donald Knuth, the designer of $$T_E \chi$$. This is a vastly better than the award to the first person to detect a bug. The original award was$2.56 and doubled with each bug found until the award was frozen before it got too out of hand (most of the award checks are framed instead of cashed, but any higher and the temptation of money would become too irresistable). More importantly, what would be the version number of the next revision of $$T_E \chi$$.

Knuth's counterpart to $$T_E \chi$$ is MetaFont. MetaFont was actually designed in 1979. Version 2 was released in 1984 and is the last version that will be released. Of course, there have been several revisions to version 2, including versions 2.7, 2.71, 2.718, 2.7182, 2.71828, etc.