For printing there was PANTONE's Hexachrome which used 6 ink colours to greatly extend the possible colour range --- but the only printer I know of who made great use of, and profited by doing so, used it only for its increased range's covering of additional spot colours --- so they basically persuaded every printer w/in driving distance to sub-contract spot colour work to them (for those colours which fit in the Hexachrome gamut), then used fancy software to gang up jobs onto a plate, run as many copies as were necessary, cut and stack, and then send out the jobs and run the next plate, no need to wash down the press and change inks.

I tried to sell the idea of implementing it for high-end photo pieces at a printer I worked at, but no real interest because it was difficult for sales to communicate, and no one wanted to spend money printing a sample/researching images which benefited from it.

>I ended up directly using solvespace's solver instead of the suggested wrapper code since it didn't expose all of the features I needed. I also had to patch the solver to make it sufficiently fast for the kinds of equations I was generating by symbolically solving equations where applicable. ↩

https://dune3d.org/

which I find a little less confusing than the traditional 3D CAD packages I've tried (and failed to learn) --- at least for Dune 3D I've made it through the tutorial successfully.

I use BlockSCAD a lot --- maybe an option for more math-oriented students?

Some quick testing:

I really wish the dimension objects around the editable dimensions were draggable (the "nudges" (up/down spin arrows) are nice).

I couldn't get "Hole" to function as I expected (assumed it would remove itself from all other objects).

No panning of the 3D view?

That said, these days, I mostly use the Premium Pen included w/ my first-gen Kindle Scribe, or a Wacom One stylus (where the Staedtler used to be, prompted by my chipping and cracking the screen on my GB3 and having to apply a screen protector --- the harder tip on the W1 being a better match).

The Staedtler Noris Jumbo is nice, but I wish it had a side switch. The pens bundled w/ my Samsung Galaxy Books (panic-bought a spare when the afore-mentioned screen incident happened) are fine, but I am annoyed that there's no silo (agree w/ Samsung being hobbled by their agreement w/ Wacom being annoying). Don't like the feel of the white Kindle Scribe Coloursoft stylus --- too rubbery.

My backup is a Lamy Safari Wacom EMR which I keep in my travel sling bag --- if I could justify a second, I'd probably EDC it and it would get promoted to favourite.

There are a few others which I've been meaning to try....

Nick Scarne is an interesting name to look up, and his writings are almost on a level with his facility to manipulate cards.

Styluses w/ batteries/capacitors were okay once upon a time, but Wacom EMR "just works" and makes my life simpler/nicer (I couldn't count how many styluses I have around my house/in my bags so as to allow me to use my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, Galaxy Note 10+, Kindle Scribe Coloursoft, and Wacom One display (attached to a MacBook).

https://xkcd.com/1190/

(which won a well-deserved Hugo if memory serves)

I've been on something of a webcomic kick for a while now, and while I'd love to shill for _Girl Genius_ https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104 (oops, guess I just did), the artist whom I find most striking and who best epitomizes the evolution of webcomics (Kaja and Phil Foglio have their origin firmly planted in traditional print work) is "Tailsteak":

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6852154.Mason_Tailstea...

who has gone from: 1/0 https://www.undefined.net/1/0/?strip=1

to Leftover Soup: https://www.leftoversoup.com/first.php

and is now working on: https://forwardcomic.com/firstpage.html

where each is published once a week or so, with a story plotted out to run for 1,000 strips --- ~two decades each --- curiousity over what other such stories are out there has me searching/reading a lot, and a "Webcomics" browser bookmarks/favorites folder which is beginning to scroll....

That said, I'll keep it in mind and maybe if I come across a windfall will apply thusly....

https://www.youtube.com/@chronovaengineering

Welcome to that sub-group of the Lucky 10,000 today!

https://xkcd.com/1053/

One of the longest days of my life was generating a press-ready PDF using a beta of a then-new program called "pdftex" which would validate for the "Thomson Techno Task Force"'s standard... tried _every_ possible combination of printer drivers, PDF applications, and settings to learn that Adobe Acrobat would _not_ work, but Adobe Acrobat Reader would, that the printer driver had to be Apple's LaserWriter 8.6 (not the Adobe driver or some other LW version), and that the .ps file had to be PS Level 2 (not 3), but that "Generate Level 3 Page Semantics" had to be checked on.... over a quarter of a century since and that memory is still seared in my otherwise uncertain organic memory.

Naturally, this is all interwoven w/ the early history of the Macintosh and LaserWriter --- a couple of relevant stories on folklore.org

- https://www.folklore.org/Origins_of_Spline-Based_and_Anti-Al...

- https://www.folklore.org/The_End_Of_An_Era.html

It's also notable that Display PostScript was largely developed by folks at NeXT such as Mike Paquette.

Anyone who is interested in PostScript should definitely get "The Green Book" by Glenn Reid (_PostScript Language Program Design_) as well as his wonderful _Thinking in PostScript_.

That said, my wife's aunt oversaw one of the largest Xerox Alto/Star networks in the U.S. Government, and when we would chat, her stories would all be about how well things worked and how easy it was to manage (aside from getting funding), while mine were all stories about fixing weird problems...

_Very_ cool, and I know what I'm going to do w/ my son's old rPi3 --- any plans to update for the 5?