How to run MetaFont84 on the Suns under V

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--	Using the line editor.

Many (but not all) programs including MetaFont, use V's line editor
to talk with the terminal. This means that the current input line
is in a miniture (one-line!) text editor. Commands for this editor
are like those for ved and vemacs (but not quite the same).

The most important commands:
The left and right arrow keys move the cursor.
Ctrl/A and Ctrl/E go to respectively beginning and end of line.
<Del> deletes the character to the left of the cursor.
Any printing character is inserted at the cursor.
<Return> finishes editing, and gives the finished line to the program
waiting for it.

--	Running MetaFont

There are two ways of running MetaFont:

1. mf file
MetaFont will process the commands in file.mf, creating file.gf (output)
and file.log (log file). It will then exit.
2. mf
MetaFont will type **, which means that it want a file name.
It will process the commands in the file as above. When it is done,
it will ask for a new file, with the message:
Type a new file name, or a blank line to exit.
Type a <Return> if you are through. To do a new file, give it a new file name.

The intention is that you run mf, discover a mistake, switch to the editor
(where your mf your file is already waiting), fix the mistake, write out
the file, and then retype the filename (I'll figure out some way to save
the retyping later). This saves the time that it takes to load mf
into the workstation.

--	Interrupting mf.

If mf is taking a long time doing something you suspect is bogus,
you can type Ctrl/C. mf periodically checks if have done this, in which
case it asks you for a command. This way you can stop
an infinite loop.

Sometimes this will not work. In that case, hit the Right mouse button
to get the main menu, and select "Exec control". Select "Kill program"
from the new menu, and then click the mouse inside MetaFont's window.
This should stop it dead. If mf has a display window open, that will
unfortunately be lying around.
(Selecting "Delete Executive" instead of "Kill program" is even more drastic,
and removes both command and display windows.)

-- Running MetaFont line by line
By setting the variable 'pausing' to 1, MetaFont will execute only
one line at a time. Before executing the line, MetaFont, will type
out "=>", and place the line in the Line Editor. You can now type
<Return> to have MetaFont go ahead and execute the line, or you can use
the Line Editor command to change the command. This feature is useful
for both experimentation and debugging.

--	Looking at gf files with the 'bits' font editor.

A useful program to run is 'bits'. (Just type 'bits' to an executive.)
This is a combined font and bitmap editor.
After you start it up, it will ask for a window to display characters in.
Move the mouse to the where you want the top left corner to go, press
a mouse button, and move the mouse (while keeping the button down)
until you get to where you want the bottom right corner.
After that, bits will use the command window as a menu.
To select a command, just "click" it with the mouse.

-- To read in a new gf font.
Click the "[]" to the left of the string "Metafont gf font" (center
right of the window). bits will ask for the name of the font you want to
look at (you can leave out the final ".gf").

-- Selecting a character to look at.
...
The character will be displayed (8 times magnified) in the character window.

-- Looking at a string.
You can see how a string of characters would look together, correctly
positioned and at normal size by clicking "Sample text". You are
then supposed to type in the string to display, and position
a new window (for the string to be displayed in).
If you want to change the string, just "click" "Sample text" again,
and you can use the line editor to change it.
To get non-printable characters, use the special character '\'.
E.g. The sample text "a\010b" will display character number 10(octal) between
a and b. See the reference manual for more details.