[texhax] Whither access to PK fonts?

[Rex Shudde]

I understand the current usage of Type I fonts and True Type fonts and 
realize they are a great step forward.

However, over the past twenty years of using Plain TeX and Metafont, I have 
generated a number of glyphs (some with shading) and symbols as PK fonts 
which I use in my work.  The problem is, I can't find how to access them 
with the newer TeX engines.

Finally, after upgrading my computer and including a very large capacity 
hard drive, I installed TeXLive 2007.  I may not be looking in the right 
places, but nowhere have I been able to find what sort of paths are needed 
(let alone how to specify them) to access PK fonts and their various 
magnifications. This is true for MiKTeX and an upgraded commercial TeX 
engine I've been using. PK fonts are not even mentioned in any of the Help 
files I've looked at.

Metafont was designed to be used in conjunction with TeX.  True, the current 
trend in fonts was not anticipated, but it does seem to me that the current 
engines should be backward compatible with the what the Grand Wizard 
originally implemented and gave to us all to use.

Again, I may have overlooked the obvious and, if so, I hope someone will 
enlighten me and point me in the right direction.

Thank you,
Rex Shudde