font list lossage

[David A. Moon <Moon at SCRC-TENEX>]

    Date: Thursday, 16 August 1984, 18:57-EDT
    From:  <SAZ at MIT-OZ>

    In ZWEI in Release 5.0 [Beta Test rev 7], Experimental Useful 10.0,
    Experimental TimeKit 12.0, Experimental Music 11.0,
    Experimental Pitch 11.0, Experimental Enharm-Pitch 11.0,
    Experimental Harmony 11.0, Experimental Staff 11.0,
    Experimental Chroma 11.0, Experimental Play 9.0,
    Experimental Linedit 7.0, Experimental Frets 8.0, Music: GC'ed 8 Jul, on Lisp Machine Four (LM-2):

    I was experimenting with fonts the other day, defined a few
    in a font list in a mode line, and saved the file.  However
    I did it improperly, and somehow, control chars got saved
    out in the font list (in fact, the control chars which signify
    a switch to the fonts they preceded!).  Now I come back the
    next day and try to read in the file and can't do it because
    a font is undefined (ie, it's medfnb1 rather than medfnb),
    I get an error, and not one of the options allows me to 
    enter the file anyway, ignoring the broken font list and using
    some default font.

    THIS MEANS NO WAY TO ENTER THE FILE TO CHANGE THE IMPROPER FONT
    LIST, GUYS!

    If it weren't for Emacs, I still wouldn't be able to enter
    that file to this day!

m-X Find File in Fundamental Mode.

But I agree that this should be offered automatically when you get an error
trying to parse the attribute line of a file.  Actually the development system
seems to be even better; in all cases I tested it recovered automatically
without going into the debugger at all.  So in the next release your problem
should be gone; thanks for the report.