1978
Donald Knuth begins developing TeX
Donald Knuth began developing TeXDonald Knuth's typesetting system — precise mathematical and technical document layout. in 1978 after dissatisfaction with typesetting for The Art of Computer Programming.
What it was for
TeXDonald Knuth's typesetting system — precise mathematical and technical document layout. and METAFONT became the standard for mathematical and scientific publishing — still used by arXiv, academia, and Knuth's own books. TeXDonald Knuth's typesetting system — precise mathematical and technical document layout. influenced modern typesetting pipelines and the idea of literate programming.
People
- Donald Knuth — creator
Why it's here
TeXDonald Knuth's typesetting system — precise mathematical and technical document layout. is the dominant open typesetting system for technical documents.
Why it mattered
It proved programmers could build publication-quality typography from scratch.
What it solved
Commercial typesetting could not handle complex mathematics to Knuth's standards.
Media
- ImageTeX
Alejo2083, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons