TeX is a completely revised and rewritten version of the original TeX78
program.  The new version is highly portable, includes many improvements,
and has been extensively tested, so it appears to be quite stable and
reliable.  The user manual is "The TeXbook" by Donald Knuth (published by
Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-201-13448-9).  The file ERRATA.TEX[TEX,DEK] contains
a list of all known errors in the manual.

The WAITS monitor knows about TeX, so you can say "tex foo" and TEX will
process the file FOO.TEX on your area.  Simply saying "tex" will repeat
your most recent tex command.  You can also use αXGO from E.  Of course,
you can bypass Snail by saying "r tex" to the monitor.  TEX will then
prompt you with a double asterisk, to which you'll probably want to say
"foo" or "\input foo".

The outputs of "tex foo" will appear on two files. (1) FOO.DVI contains
the typesetter information, which you can send to the Dover with the
command "r dvidov;foo". (TeX prepares this instruction for you.)  Or you
can say "r dvidd;foo" to display the typeset paper on a Data Disc screen.
(2) FOO.LOG is a transcript of your run, sometimes containing additional
information that may help to diagnose mysterious errors.

TeX looks for input files first on your current alias, and then on
[TEX,SYS].  The default extension for \input, \read and \write files is
.TEX, but you can override this.  When you ask for "\font bar", TeX looks
on [TEX,SYS] for BAR.TFM file, but you can override the ppn here, too.

You can interrupt TeX while it's running by typing <ESC>I. (Try it some time.)

READ LaTeX for information on a macro package for TeX82 inspired by Scribe.

Macros for business letters appear on LETTER.TEX[tex,sys].

Help TeX78 for info on how to get the old version of TeX.  Since TeX is so
much better than TeX78, it had to be incompatible with the previous
system. But most of your manuscript files will be unchanged; it's the
macros and font definitions that need revision.  There is a terse but
essentially complete discussion of all the differences between TeX78 and
TeX in the file TEX82.DIF[tex,dek].