              A Brief history of the FreeType project

                          by David Turner


                   ------------------------------


The idea of writing a TrueType engine came to  me  in  December  95,
where  I  decided that my beloved OS/2 deserved much better than the
ugly  font  engine provided by IBM.  My original goal was to produce
an OS/2-specific font DLL that could replace or co-exist with the so
sick "PmAtm" from Adobe.  Unfortunately, I could not get my hands on
any piece of information  regarding  a similarly top-secret IBM spec
called the 'Intelligent Font Interface', which forced me to  develop
a portable and system independent version.

This  turned  to  be  much  easier  than expected, as everything was
written  in  Pascal,  a   language   that   fits   better   my   own
'zen-of-programming'  (  faster compiles, smart linking, great IDEs,
simple and strong-typed language  ..   ).  Two Pascal compilers were
used alternatively, namely OS/2's Virtual Pascal (VP)  from  fPrint,
and  an  old  copy  of  Borland's  Pascal 7 ( BP7 ).  For all of you
Pascal freaks, VP *is* a Bomb !  It is *my* OS/2 killer app !!

During Feb/March 96, my social life did not let me the time to  keep
up  the  development of the engine for several months.  I am glad to
be back on  it  since  October,  moreover  being nearly on vacations
until Jan 97, with lots ot time to spend on  it  !!   Luckily,  some
real cool guy even sent me the OS/2 specs I was awaiting for so long
( I really don't know where he got these, hope he  didn't  break  an
NDA..  ).  By the way, the new OS/2  4.0  (  a.k.a.   Merlin  )  has
also buit-in TrueType support, but one that I consider 'lousy' !


After uploading the engine to some few archives, I  began  receiving
requests  for  a  C  version,  which  I  began  to write with Robert
Wilhelm, one guy insane enough to propose himself in the porting  of
the  engine  to  WINE  (  The Linux Windows Emulator ) ;-) Though it
happened to be faster that I myself  port a first version, he is now
in charge of the Linux/C port and its  development.   We'll  try  to
synchronize the sources  as  often  as  possible.  Don't hesitate to
contact him on all Linux issues.

This  archive contains now both versions, and should enlighten young
and old  programmers  alike  ;-)  However,  this  is  still an alpha
release, lacking a number of important features,  like  instructions
hinting,  and some parts do not reflect yet the engine as it will be
in its final architecture.  A  TrueType interpreter has been written
in Pascal, but is still under debugging ( and should be ported to  C
too  ).   However,  the scan-line converter works wonders and can be
tested with two simple programs called 'zoom' and 'testtime'.

I'm  optimistic  about  the project, and hope to see a final release
for christmas 96 ( crossing my fingers..  )


  - David


You can contact us by email at the following addresses :


  David Turner             Robert Wilhelm

  Pascal &
  core design              Linux &
  questions                C questions
  any bug reports          C/Linux related bug reports

  turner@enst.fr           robert@physiol.med.tu-muenchen.de

