Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Aharon Robbins]

The Tenth Edition manual doesn't cover MM because (I believe) the people
at Bell Labs Research didn't use MM; they used MS.

Back in the days before Calderra bloodied the name of SCO, when SCO
first made available "Personal Unix Licenses", among the things included
was System III.  The System III sources were available via The Unix
Historical Society (www.tuhs.org) to those who sent in a copy of the
license.  I paid a whopping $100 for such a license and have the System
III sources, which includes the document cited below.

I was able to make good use of it circa 1999 for the third edition of
O'Reilly's "Unix In A Nutshell" where I included full documentation of
the MM macros.  So, if you can find a copy of that book, you'll have
reasonable documentation.

The fourth edition dropped most of the troff coverage; I was able to
convince the editor to let me put in enough to make it possible for
people to write man pages. :-(  One Of These Days I'd like to take the
older material and make a "shortcut" called "Troff In A Nutshell" but
I don't know when I'll find the time.

I don't know what the legal status is of System III and thus of this
document.  Maybe someone can arrange for a copy of the document to "fall
off a truck" somewhere .... Sigh.

HTH,

Arnold

P.S. Would anyone care to volunteer as to the legal status of a PDF
version of the document?

> Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:33:58 -0600 (CST)
> From: Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org>
> Subject: Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation
> To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
>
> The Tenth Edition manual doesn't have mm (in the second volume at least)
> and the troff manual only helps if one wants to make a new manual page (my
> start at one is at contrib/btdn/man/6/mm)
>
> To be more concrete, it would be nice to either have
> "MM - Memorandum Macros. D. W. Smith, J. R. Mashey, E. C. Pariser, and N.
> W. Smith, AT&T Bell Laboratories, June 1980." or mm(6). I suppose
> <http://inetsd01.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/hu_HU/cmds/aixcmds5/troff.htm>
> will do for now...
>
> I have started an index file of the various things in /sys/lib/tmac at
> contrib/btdn/doc/tmac -- if you have an account you can update it
> yourself, or you can email me corrections. Some of the things can probably
> be deleted, at least from the view of someone outside of Bell Labs. No
> offence to Arun N. Netravali, but are (complet cover)^.1127 needed?
> tmac.org is just a .so to /usr/lib/macros/org.
>
> And in case no one has noticed, the sources website doesn't work.
> --
> Benn Newman

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Benn Newman]

Aharon Robbins said:
> The Tenth Edition manual doesn't cover MM because (I believe) the people
> at Bell Labs Research didn't use MM; they used MS.

Which I use most of the time, but for some sets of documents, I use mm.

> Back in the days before Calderra bloodied the name of SCO, when SCO
> first made available "Personal Unix Licenses", among the things included
> was System III.  The System III sources were available via The Unix
> Historical Society (www.tuhs.org) to those who sent in a copy of the
> license.  I paid a whopping $100 for such a license and have the System
> III sources, which includes the document cited below.
>
> I was able to make good use of it circa 1999 for the third edition of
> O'Reilly's "Unix In A Nutshell" where I included full documentation of
> the MM macros.  So, if you can find a copy of that book, you'll have
> reasonable documentation.

That is what I printed out, it is not complete though (e.g. it doesn't
document the macros for letters) and it is not in every one's favourite
man(6).

> The fourth edition dropped most of the troff coverage; I was able to
> convince the editor to let me put in enough to make it possible for
> people to write man pages. :-(  One Of These Days I'd like to take the
> older material and make a "shortcut" called "Troff In A Nutshell" but
> I don't know when I'll find the time.

Good for you. :)

> I don't know what the legal status is of System III and thus of this
> document.  Maybe someone can arrange for a copy of the document to "fall
> off a truck" somewhere .... Sigh.
>
> HTH,
>
> Arnold
>
> P.S. Would anyone care to volunteer as to the legal status of a PDF
> version of the document?

Caldera released 32-bit 32 UNIX and 16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
and 7 under the four clause BSD license, see contrib/forsyth/refer.tgz.

>> Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:33:58 -0600 (CST)
>> From: Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org>
>> Subject: Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation
>> To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
>>
>> The Tenth Edition manual doesn't have mm (in the second volume at least)
>> and the troff manual only helps if one wants to make a new manual page
>> (my
>> start at one is at contrib/btdn/man/6/mm)
>>
>> To be more concrete, it would be nice to either have
>> "MM - Memorandum Macros. D. W. Smith, J. R. Mashey, E. C. Pariser, and
>> N.
>> W. Smith, AT&T Bell Laboratories, June 1980." or mm(6). I suppose
>> <http://inetsd01.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/hu_HU/cmds/aixcmds5/troff.htm>
>> will do for now...
>>
>> I have started an index file of the various things in /sys/lib/tmac at
>> contrib/btdn/doc/tmac -- if you have an account you can update it
>> yourself, or you can email me corrections. Some of the things can
>> probably
>> be deleted, at least from the view of someone outside of Bell Labs. No
>> offence to Arun N. Netravali, but are (complet cover)^.1127 needed?
>> tmac.org is just a .so to /usr/lib/macros/org.
>>
>> And in case no one has noticed, the sources website doesn't work.
>> --
>> Benn Newman
>
-- 
Benn Newman

[9fans] mm macro documentation

[Benn Newman]

Plan 9 includes the ?roff mm macros (/sys/lib/tmac/tmac.m) but no
documentation. Anyone know what is up with that? I printed out a boot-leg
version of one of O'Reilly's books that has mm documenation but it is not
complete (doesn't document letters, for example, which Plan 9's troff has)
and its not in everyone's favourite man(6).

But as always, it beats groff! It's implementation and documentation of mm
are brain dead.
-- 
Benn Newman

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Vester Thacker]

The Troff's User Manual might be helpful to you, see
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/troff.pdf

Regards,
Vester


On 1/8/07, Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> Plan 9 includes the ?roff mm macros (/sys/lib/tmac/tmac.m) but no
> documentation. Anyone know what is up with that? I printed out a boot-leg
> version of one of O'Reilly's books that has mm documenation but it is not
> complete (doesn't document letters, for example, which Plan 9's troff has)
> and its not in everyone's favourite man(6).
>
> But as always, it beats groff! It's implementation and documentation of mm
> are brain dead.
> --
> Benn Newman
>
>

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Steve Simon]

I believe Plan9's document formatting applications is pretty much a straight
port of those in V10 Research Unix.

"Typing Documents on the UNIX System: using -ms ..." , Lorinda Cherry and Mike Lesk

This paper is part of the 10th edition manual, though an online version
is linked from the Plan9 wiki or more directly,
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/10thEdMan/msdoc.pdf

The wiki also links to the tbl grap, pic and a few other
papers in the same area.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Benn Newman]

The Tenth Edition manual doesn't have mm (in the second volume at least)
and the troff manual only helps if one wants to make a new manual page (my
start at one is at contrib/btdn/man/6/mm)

To be more concrete, it would be nice to either have
"MM - Memorandum Macros. D. W. Smith, J. R. Mashey, E. C. Pariser, and N.
W. Smith, AT&T Bell Laboratories, June 1980." or mm(6). I suppose
<http://inetsd01.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/hu_HU/cmds/aixcmds5/troff.htm>
will do for now...

I have started an index file of the various things in /sys/lib/tmac at
contrib/btdn/doc/tmac -- if you have an account you can update it
yourself, or you can email me corrections. Some of the things can probably
be deleted, at least from the view of someone outside of Bell Labs. No
offence to Arun N. Netravali, but are (complet cover)^.1127 needed?
tmac.org is just a .so to /usr/lib/macros/org.

And in case no one has noticed, the sources website doesn't work.
-- 
Benn Newman

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[geoff]

Sources was down earlier today but it's up now and `pull -n' and
`9fs sources' from outside work for me.  If you're still having
trouble, mail me the details.

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Benn Newman]

The Tenth Edition manual doesn't have mm (in the second volume at least)
and the troff manual only helps if one wants to make a new manual page (my
start at one is at contrib/btdn/man/6/mm)

To be more concrete, it would be nice to either have
"MM - Memorandum Macros. D. W. Smith, J. R. Mashey, E. C. Pariser, and N.
W. Smith, AT&T Bell Laboratories, June 1980."/"Addendum to the Memorandum
Macros User's Manual.
December, 1986." or mm(6). I suppose
<http://inetsd01.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/hu_HU/cmds/aixcmds5/troff.htm>
will do for now...

I have started an index file of the various things in /sys/lib/tmac at
contrib/btdn/doc/tmac -- if you have an account you can update it
yourself, or you can email me corrections. Some of the things can probably
be deleted, at least from the view of someone outside of Bell Labs. No
offence to Arun N. Netravali, but are (complet cover)^.1127 needed?
tmac.org is just a .so to /usr/lib/macros/org.

And in case no one has noticed, the sources website doesn't work.
-- 
Benn Newman



-- 
Benn Newman

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Joel Salomon]

On 1/7/07, Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> I printed out a boot-leg version of one of O'Reilly's books that has mm
> documenation but it is not complete

Do you mean <http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/utp/>?  That's not
samizdat; it's been officially released.

Is there any chance of the 10th (or earlier) Edition manual sources
being made available to be brought up-to-date and added to /sys/doc?

--Joel

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Russ Cox]

> Is there any chance of the 10th (or earlier) Edition manual sources
> being made available to be brought up-to-date and added to /sys/doc?

As Arnold pointed out, the 10th Edition Unix manuals
do not cover -mm, neither in Volume 1 (man pages) nor in
Volume 2 (papers).

Russ

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Joel Salomon]

> > Is there any chance of the 10th (or earlier) Edition manual sources
> > being made available to be brought up-to-date and added to /sys/doc?
>
> As Arnold pointed out, the 10th Edition Unix manuals
> do not cover -mm, neither in Volume 1 (man pages) nor in
> Volume 2 (papers).

9th Ed., then?  8th?

--Joel

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Brantley Coile]

> 9th Ed., then?  8th?

My 8th edition manual only had man, mcs and ms macros.
Same for the 9th edition.  These are all Vol 1 since I don't think
there was a vol 2 for these editions.

Re: [9fans] mm macro documentation

[Benn Newman]

Joel Salomon said:
> On 1/7/07, Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
>> I printed out a boot-leg version of one of O'Reilly's books that has mm
>> documenation but it is not complete
>
> Do you mean <http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/utp/>?  That's not
> samizdat; it's been officially released.

No, that is not what I mean. Something along the lines of "UNIX in a
Nutshell."

> Is there any chance of the 10th (or earlier) Edition manual sources
> being made available to be brought up-to-date and added to /sys/doc?

I don't know. The papers have people's names on them, I'm not sure how
they would like us changing things (it's not exactly like source code).
Would it be appropriate, for example, for the community to send patches
for /sys/doc/9.ms?

> --Joel
>
-- 
Benn Newman