From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> wrote:

.............................................................. As most output devices nowadays have resolutions so far in excess of anything
whose dots your eyes can reasonably be expected to resolve, the METAFONT mode is largely obsolescent: at some stage, TeX distributions set to
some default value like HP LaserJet 600|u600 but I think nowadays
METAFONT has a setting called 'modeless' (I may be wrong on this: it's
been many decades since I needed to know, and texmf.cnf is singularly unforthcoming).

OK, then that is a good default, and I suppose that answers my question;
there is then no need to deal with METAFONT modes (unless the user
explicitly specifies one); it already knows the resolution, so it can
just use the resolution alone to determine which file to load.

I cannot find a "modeless" setting in my computer (I looked in modes.mf,
which lists the modes, and texmf.cnf, which doesn't seem to mention the METAFONT modes at all), and mktexpk just says mismatched mode. I looked at
the code for mktexpk; it is a shell script; it seems that "modeless" is
only for PostScript fonts, and is not for fonts made using METAFONT. It
also looks like it executes METAFONT to determine if the mode matches; if
it doesn't match, tries to guess using a hard-coded table. Although, it
seem like easily enough to add a "modeless" option for METAFONT-based
fonts into mktexpk (there are a few possible ways to do this, but in all
cases you would skip the check at the beginning in modeless mode for if
the mode and DPI does not match).

But maybe the version I have is old, and the new version does have such a "modeless" setting that would do what would be needed if the user has not specified any METAFONT mode.

People do still use Postscript rCo some printers still have platemaking equipment whose RIP only accepts Postscript rCo but most output is now PDF.

OK. I did not know that, but Ghostscript has the ability to output
level 2 PostScript (as well as PDF), so you can use that if you need that.

A number of popular numeric and drawing packages still apparently produce EPS output (my old favourite stats package, P-Stat, among them), but
it's easy to convert the EPS to PDF for embedding in a [La]TeX document.

OK, although I don't use EPS, nor those programs, nor LaTeX, nor pdfTeX.
If I need graphics made from data from another program, I will generally instead write a program in PostScript to read that file and plot the data.
But EPS works too if that is what you are using.
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

Basically, dvi.ps is an alternative to dvips and dvipdf. One difference is
that dvi.ps is meant to run the PostScript program on the computer, not on
the printer (it is unlikely any printer will execute it, but you can make
the output from it in whatever format you need, for use with a printer, or
for other purposes). There are many other differences too.

I wrote a DVI program with PostScript. Probably many improvements could be made, but you can see what it is so far if you want to do. (This program
may be helpful if you want to use TeX and PostScript codes together.)

Download: http://zzo38computer.org/prog/dvi_ps.zip
(Documentation is also included)

Please post comment if you have improved it, found a mistake, questions, complaints, etc. (You might also find a use to use parts of this program
in other programs, such as the PK font loading, in case you like to use
PK fonts in PostScript. This program is public domain.)

(One possible improvement would be to add a command to load and interpret
TFM files, in order that you can use ligatures/kerning in text which is
inside of diagrams which are not produced with TeX. Another possible improvement would be to add an option to set the METAFONT mode to use,
and possibly a way to try to determine it automatically by the use of
the page device dictionary somehow, if it is possible. There are probably
a lot more possibilities, too; I can think of some, but not all.)

PostScript is good for graphics, while TeX (I prefer Plain TeX myself,
although many people use LaTeX) and DVI are good for text. So, now we
can use both (although it can't use PostScript codes to affect the
decisions made in TeX, unless you make multiple passes).

(Is there any version of METAFONT which can produce PK files directly
rather than needing first GF and then converted to PK?)
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

On Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at 7:46:24 PM UTC-4, ne...@zzo38computer.org.invalid wrote:

(Is there any version of METAFONT which can produce PK files directly
rather than needing first GF and then converted to PK?)

It appears not. However,
https://linux.die.net/man/1/maketexpk
says it can make a PK file from the Metafont source, rather than needing the GF --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2