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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]           ` <175409f6-af94-601e-3db3-a5af5d7f64d0@gmail.com>
@ 2020-11-06 15:53             ` clemc
  2020-11-06 19:22               ` tytso
  2020-11-06 22:58               ` grog
       [not found]             ` <202011061546.0A6Fkv3D034443@elf.torek.net>
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-06 15:53 UTC (permalink / raw)


Moving to COFF.
below.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 10:40 AM Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Clem,
>
> It figures. I should have known there was a reason for the shorter lines
> other than display. Conventions are sticky and there appears to be a
> generation gap. I use single spaces between sentences, but my ancestors
> used 2... who knows why? :).
>
You never use a real typewriter.  Double-space allows you to edit
(physically) the document if need be.   This was how I did everything
before I had easy computer access.

I went to college with an electric typewriter and all my papers were done
on it in the fall of my freshman year (until I got access to UNIX).  I did
have an CS account for the PDP-10 and they had the XGP, but using it for
something like your papers was somewhat frowned upon.    However, the UNIX
boxes we often bought 'daisy wheel' typewriters that had RS-232C
interfaces.  Using nroff, I could then do my papers and run it off in the
admin's desk at night.

Clem
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]             ` <202011061546.0A6Fkv3D034443@elf.torek.net>
@ 2020-11-06 16:22               ` clemc
  2020-11-06 18:12                 ` torek
  2020-11-07  2:52                 ` cym224
       [not found]               ` <20201106225422.GD99027@eureka.lemis.com>
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-06 16:22 UTC (permalink / raw)


Exactly -- just re-read Will's question.  2 spaces after punctuation is a
fix-size typeface solution to the 1.5 typographer layout.

I was referring to why typed papers were traditionally double spaced
between the lines.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 11:02 AM Chris Torek <torek at elf.torek.net> wrote:

> >I use single spaces between sentences, but my ancestors
> >used 2... who knows why? :).
>
> Typewriters.
>
> In typesetting, especially when doing right-margin justification,
> we have "stretchy spaces" between words.  The space after end-of-
> sentence punctuation marks is supposed to be about 50% larger than
> the width of the between-words spaces, and if the word spaces get
> stretched, so should the end-of-sentence space.  Note that this is
> all in the variable-pitch font world.
>
> Since typewriters are fixed-pitch, the way to emulate the
> 1.5-space-wide gap is to expand it to 2.
>
> Chris
>
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]         ` <3c54b19d-e604-68eb-2b4b-0b65e9cfb896@earthlink.net>
@ 2020-11-06 17:56           ` clemc
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-06 17:56 UTC (permalink / raw)


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I'd be curious to hear from the folks a few years older than I (I started
in the later 60s with the GE-635), but my own experiences of having lived
through some of it, I personally think it was more to do with all of the
systems of the time switching from cards to the Model 28 and later the 33
then Unix or AT&T.  Unix was just one of the systems that we used at the
time of the transition from cards.  But the other timesharing systems of
those days began to transition to the tty's requirements.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 12:27 PM Stephen Clark <sclark46 at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> On 11/6/20 12:13 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
> > I’m going to chime in on pro-80-columns here, because with the text a
> comfortable size to read (although this is getting less true as my eyes
> age), I can read an entire 80-column line without having to sweep my eyes
> back and forth.
> >
> > I can’t, and never could, do that at 132.
> >
> > As a consequence, I read much, much faster with 80-column-ish text
> blocks.
> >
> > I also think there is something to the “UNIX is verbal” and “UNIX nerds
> tend to be polyglots often with a surprising amount of liberal arts
> background of one kind or another,” argument.  That may, however, merely be
> confirmation bias.
> >
> > Adam
> May have had to do with the first terminal commonly used with UNIX.
>
> The Model 33 printed on 8.5-inch (220 mm) wide paper, supplied on
> continuous
> 5-inch (130 mm) diameter rolls and fed via friction (instead of, e.g.,
> tractor
> feed). It printed at a fixed 10 characters per inch, and supported
> 74-character
> lines,[13] although 72 characters is often commonly stated.
>
>
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 16:22               ` [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature clemc
@ 2020-11-06 18:12                 ` torek
  2020-11-07  2:52                 ` cym224
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: torek @ 2020-11-06 18:12 UTC (permalink / raw)


>I was referring to why typed papers were traditionally double spaced
>between the lines.

(this seems to have moved to coff@, which I think I am not on)

Ah, the traditional reason for doubling the "leading" (not that
there's any actual chemical-element-Pb lead in typewriting) is
for copy-editing purposes.

I'm not sure if traditional typesetting drafts had increased
leading like this.

Chris


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 15:53             ` clemc
@ 2020-11-06 19:22               ` tytso
  2020-11-06 19:24                 ` clemc
  2020-11-06 22:58               ` grog
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: tytso @ 2020-11-06 19:22 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 10:53:59AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> 
> I went to college with an electric typewriter and all my papers were done
> on it in the fall of my freshman year (until I got access to UNIX).  I did
> have an CS account for the PDP-10 and they had the XGP, but using it for
> something like your papers was somewhat frowned upon.    However, the UNIX
> boxes we often bought 'daisy wheel' typewriters that had RS-232C
> interfaces.  Using nroff, I could then do my papers and run it off in the
> admin's desk at night.

When I was in high school, we had a box that could be fitted over an
Olivetti electric typewriter's keyboard, which had solenoids to
"type".  The other end had a parallel port and it was connected to a
Heathkit H-89 CP/M system, and so rough drafts would be sent to the
dot matrix printer, but for the final copy, it could look like it came
out of a typewriter --- because technically, it did.  :-)

       	 	    		- Ted


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 19:22               ` tytso
@ 2020-11-06 19:24                 ` clemc
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-06 19:24 UTC (permalink / raw)


Outstanding hack!

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 2:22 PM Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso at mit.edu> wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 10:53:59AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> >
> > I went to college with an electric typewriter and all my papers were done
> > on it in the fall of my freshman year (until I got access to UNIX).  I
> did
> > have an CS account for the PDP-10 and they had the XGP, but using it for
> > something like your papers was somewhat frowned upon.    However, the
> UNIX
> > boxes we often bought 'daisy wheel' typewriters that had RS-232C
> > interfaces.  Using nroff, I could then do my papers and run it off in the
> > admin's desk at night.
>
> When I was in high school, we had a box that could be fitted over an
> Olivetti electric typewriter's keyboard, which had solenoids to
> "type".  The other end had a parallel port and it was connected to a
> Heathkit H-89 CP/M system, and so rough drafts would be sent to the
> dot matrix printer, but for the final copy, it could look like it came
> out of a typewriter --- because technically, it did.  :-)
>
>                                 - Ted
>
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 15:53             ` clemc
  2020-11-06 19:22               ` tytso
@ 2020-11-06 22:58               ` grog
  2020-11-07 21:04                 ` clemc
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: grog @ 2020-11-06 22:58 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Friday,  6 November 2020 at 10:53:59 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> However, the UNIX boxes we often bought 'daisy wheel' typewriters
> that had RS-232C interfaces.  Using nroff, I could then do my papers
> and run it off in the admin's desk at night.

My memory is hazy, but I thought that the daisy wheel printers I knew
(Qume Sprint\5) also had proportional spacing.  I ran into significant
problems with early MS-DOS based formatting software because it made
(frequently incorrect) assumptions about character widths.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]           ` <20201106222302.GG26411@mcvoy.com>
@ 2020-11-07  0:16             ` dave
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: dave @ 2020-11-07  0:16 UTC (permalink / raw)


[ Moving to COFF (if your MUA respects "Reply-To:") ]

On Fri, 6 Nov 2020, Larry McVoy wrote:

> But I'm pretty old school, I write in C, I debug a lot with printf and 
> asserts, I'm kind of a dinosaur.

You've never experienced the joy of having your code suddenly working when 
inserting printf() statements?  Oh dear; time to break out GDB...

-- Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 16:22               ` [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature clemc
  2020-11-06 18:12                 ` torek
@ 2020-11-07  2:52                 ` cym224
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: cym224 @ 2020-11-07  2:52 UTC (permalink / raw)


On 11/06/20 11:22, Clem Cole wrote:
> Exactly -- just re-read Will's question.  2 spaces after punctuation 
> is a fix-size typeface solution to the 1.5 typographer layout.
Is it not an m-space after a full-stop?  (Though Brinhurst eschewed this 
in the fourth edition.)

> I was referring to why typed papers were traditionally double spaced 
> between the lines.
I was advised to this with drafts for copy-editing but legal documents 
are always double-spaced lines (and I know not why).

N.

> On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 11:02 AM Chris Torek <torek at elf.torek.net 
> <mailto:torek at elf.torek.net>> wrote:
>
>     >I use single spaces between sentences, but my ancestors
>     >used 2... who knows why? :).
>
>     Typewriters.
>
>     In typesetting, especially when doing right-margin justification,
>     we have "stretchy spaces" between words.  The space after end-of-
>     sentence punctuation marks is supposed to be about 50% larger than
>     the width of the between-words spaces, and if the word spaces get
>     stretched, so should the end-of-sentence space.  Note that this is
>     all in the variable-pitch font world.
>
>     Since typewriters are fixed-pitch, the way to emulate the
>     1.5-space-wide gap is to expand it to 2.
>
>     Chris
>



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]                 ` <20201106232901.AkY2I%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
@ 2020-11-07  4:22                   ` grog
  2020-11-07 20:31                     ` steffen
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: grog @ 2020-11-07  4:22 UTC (permalink / raw)


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[Coff, etc]

On Saturday,  7 November 2020 at  0:29:01 +0100, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote in
>  <20201106225422.GD99027 at eureka.lemis.com>:
>> On Friday,  6 November 2020 at  7:46:57 -0800, Chris Torek wrote:
>>> In typesetting, especially when doing right-margin justification,
>>> we have "stretchy spaces" between words.  The space after end-of-
>>> sentence punctuation marks is supposed to be about 50% larger than
>>> the width of the between-words spaces, and if the word spaces get
>>> stretched, so should the end-of-sentence space.
>>
>> FWIW, this is the US convention.  Other countries have different
>> conventions.  My Ausinfo style manual states
>>
>>  There is no need to increase the amount of punctuation ... at the
>>  end of a sentence.
>>
>> I believe that this also holds for Germany.  I'm not sure that the UK
>> didn't have different rules again.
>

> Yes, the DUDEN of Germany says for typewriters that the punctuation
> characters period, comma, semicolon, colon, question- and
> exclamation mark are added without separating whitespace.  The next
> word follows after a space ("Leerschritt", "void step").

Thanks for the confirmation.  Where did you find that?  I checked the
yellow Duden („Richtlinien für den Schriftsatz“) before sending my
previous message, but I couldn't find anything useful.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-07  4:22                   ` grog
@ 2020-11-07 20:31                     ` steffen
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: steffen @ 2020-11-07 20:31 UTC (permalink / raw)


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Hello and good evening.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote in
 <20201107042249.GG99027 at eureka.lemis.com>:
 |[Coff, etc]

I tend to hang in compose mode so long that i miss such switches
at first.

 |On Saturday,  7 November 2020 at  0:29:01 +0100, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote in
 |>  <20201106225422.GD99027 at eureka.lemis.com>:
 |>> On Friday,  6 November 2020 at  7:46:57 -0800, Chris Torek wrote:
 |>>> In typesetting, especially when doing right-margin justification,
 |>>> we have "stretchy spaces" between words.  The space after end-of-
 |>>> sentence punctuation marks is supposed to be about 50% larger than
 |>>> the width of the between-words spaces, and if the word spaces get
 |>>> stretched, so should the end-of-sentence space.
 |>>
 |>> FWIW, this is the US convention.  Other countries have different
 |>> conventions.  My Ausinfo style manual states
 |>>
 |>>  There is no need to increase the amount of punctuation ... at the
 |>>  end of a sentence.
 |>>
 |>> I believe that this also holds for Germany.  I'm not sure that the UK
 |>> didn't have different rules again.
 |
 |> Yes, the DUDEN of Germany says for typewriters that the punctuation
 |> characters period, comma, semicolon, colon, question- and
 |> exclamation mark are added without separating whitespace.  The next
 |> word follows after a space ("Leerschritt", "void step").
 |
 |Thanks for the confirmation.  Where did you find that?  I checked the
 |yellow Duden (â␦␦Richtlinien für den Schriftsatzâ␦␦) before sending my
 |previous message, but I couldn't find anything useful.

(The charset errors were already in.)

Well yes, i looked first, it has been a very long time since
i only follow my gut, if it does not come naturally leave it.  The
next chapter it is, »Hinweise für das Maschinenschreiben«
("Advices for typewriting").  (For handwriting hope is lost
anyway, noone can read that.  Even though one could find
philosophic background in good handwriting style, but i personally
was touched by the Japanese, Chinese etc., also Arabic way of
doing things already so young, western style has a hard time
against calligraphie that is to say.)

But mind you, reassuring that old typewriters really placed the
mentioned punctuation characters left in their box i even found
a bug in mutool!  (Ghostscript mupdf issue 703092.)

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-06 22:58               ` grog
@ 2020-11-07 21:04                 ` clemc
  2020-11-07 23:05                   ` dave
  2020-11-09  4:36                   ` [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) grog
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-07 21:04 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 5:58 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> My memory is hazy, but I thought that the daisy wheel printers I knew
> (Qume Sprint\5) also had proportional spacing.

I never used that brand.   Xerox (which was the main USA supplier as a pure
typewriter to compete with IBM's Selectric 'ball' units) were definitely
fixed width.   People started to hack the Xerox units to add access to
serial interface and Xerox made it standard or maybe an option as
somepoint.     IIRC it was somebody like Ollivetti that originally did the
daisywheel and Xerox licensed it and they definitely were the primary
player here.  But by the late 70s, early 80's, there were a number of
manufacturers of them.

My memory was with the maybe circa 74/75 timeframe, Xerox unit (but it
might have been one of the others) was that the original unit had a serial
port for diagnostics/maintenance which allowed access to the on-board
microprocessor (which might have been a 4-bit TI chip IIRC - same used in
some early 'Simon' games).   Somebody figured out how to hack it and the
schematics/description was available.   I remember we hacked one of the
units in the EE dept.    But by the late 1970's the serial interface was a
first class part of the unit, which made them different from IBM Selectrics
which did not have an easy to access serial interface, even though IBM used
the printer mechanism from the Selectric as the guts of the console for the
360 which I think was called a 2150 but the bits in my brain on that are
extremely stale.






> I ran into significant
> problems with early MS-DOS based formatting software because it made
> (frequently incorrect) assumptions about character widths.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
>
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* [COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-07 21:04                 ` clemc
@ 2020-11-07 23:05                   ` dave
  2020-11-09  4:36                   ` [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) grog
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: dave @ 2020-11-07 23:05 UTC (permalink / raw)


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On Sat, 7 Nov 2020, Clem Cole wrote:

> >  My memory is hazy, but I thought that the daisy wheel printers I knew 
> >  (Qume Sprint\5) also had proportional spacing. 
> 
> I never used that brand.   [...]

The daisywheel that I used (Fujitsu?) definitely was fixed-width 
(Courier); I used it a lot with WordStar on CP/M.

-- Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-07 21:04                 ` clemc
  2020-11-07 23:05                   ` dave
@ 2020-11-09  4:36                   ` grog
  2020-11-09 14:26                     ` clemc
  2020-11-09 22:08                     ` dave
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: grog @ 2020-11-09  4:36 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Saturday,  7 November 2020 at 16:04:16 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 5:58 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>
>> My memory is hazy, but I thought that the daisy wheel printers I knew
>> (Qume Sprint\5) also had proportional spacing.
>
> I never used that brand.   Xerox (which was the main USA supplier as a pure
> typewriter to compete with IBM's Selectric 'ball' units) were definitely
> fixed width.   People started to hack the Xerox units to add access to
> serial interface and Xerox made it standard or maybe an option as
> somepoint.     IIRC it was somebody like Ollivetti that originally did the
> daisywheel and Xerox licensed it and they definitely were the primary
> player here.  But by the late 70s, early 80's, there were a number of
> manufacturers of them.

The Qume printers seemed to have been the best round 1980 when we used
them in our applications.  In particular, a large choice of wheels and
fine-grained spacing.  I forget how the spacing worked.

> But by the late 1970's the serial interface was a first class part
> of the unit, which made them different from IBM Selectrics which did
> not have an easy to access serial interface, even though IBM used
> the printer mechanism from the Selectric as the guts of the console
> for the 360 which I think was called a 2150 but the bits in my brain
> on that are extremely stale.

The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the
/360 itself.  The model numbers I recall were 735, and the newer
generation 2731/2735.  The last digit related to the carriage width
(11"/15").

Round the time in question I bought a second-hand 735 machine.  It had
an arcane interface that directly talked to the magnets.  I built an
interface for it to a parallel port, but it never worked well.  Not
the interface: the 735 was second-hand and basically worn out, and it
kept coming out of adjustment.  The Qume machines were *so* much
easier to use.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-09  4:36                   ` [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) grog
@ 2020-11-09 14:26                     ` clemc
  2020-11-10  0:10                       ` grog
  2020-11-09 22:08                     ` dave
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-09 14:26 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the /360
> itself.
>
Hmmm, I think what I said is correct. The S/360 system was released in
1964. My friend Russ Roebling (360/50 chief designer ) once told me the
console came from the office products (typewriter) division.  I wish I
could remember the story he told me, but IIRC it was something WRT to
politics inside of IBM and ensuring the console device and the 360's launch
between the divisions.  [Just like every large firm I have worked, I'm not
really surprised to hear that divisional fiefdoms were rampant at IBM in
those days, too].

I'm fairly sure that the Selectric (I) was early1960s (I think 61/62).   I
just don't remember the model number of the S/360's console (every device
at IBM had numeric names), your memory is likely that the number was 7xy.
 But as I said, I'm fair sure that the guts of the console were based on
the Selectric's design.
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* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-09  4:36                   ` [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) grog
  2020-11-09 14:26                     ` clemc
@ 2020-11-09 22:08                     ` dave
  2020-11-10  0:48                       ` grog
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: dave @ 2020-11-09 22:08 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> The Qume printers seemed to have been the best round 1980 when we used 
> them in our applications.  In particular, a large choice of wheels and 
> fine-grained spacing.  I forget how the spacing worked.

Presumably some sort of a table lookup, based on which character is about 
to be hit?  Or are you referring to the micro-spacing itself?

> The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the 
> /360 itself.  The model numbers I recall were 735, and the newer 
> generation 2731/2735.  The last digit related to the carriage width 
> (11"/15").

I once had a fine collection of goofballs (as we called them); sadly lost 
in a house move :-(

> Round the time in question I bought a second-hand 735 machine.  It had 
> an arcane interface that directly talked to the magnets.  I built an 
> interface for it to a parallel port [...]

I'd like to know a bit more about that interface...  You'd have to control 
the carriage, roller, swivel/tilt/hit etc.  How did you detect the BREAK 
key to get the 360's attention and unlock the keyboard?

-- Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-09 14:26                     ` clemc
@ 2020-11-10  0:10                       ` grog
  2020-11-10 14:48                         ` clemc
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: grog @ 2020-11-10  0:10 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Monday,  9 November 2020 at  9:26:05 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>
>> The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the /360
>> itself.
>>
> Hmmm, I think what I said is correct. The S/360 system was released in
> 1964. My friend Russ Roebling (360/50 chief designer ) once told me the
> console came from the office products (typewriter) division.  I wish I
> could remember the story he told me, but IIRC it was something WRT to
> politics inside of IBM and ensuring the console device and the 360's launch
> between the divisions.  [Just like every large firm I have worked, I'm not
> really surprised to hear that divisional fiefdoms were rampant at IBM in
> those days, too].
>
> I'm fairly sure that the Selectric (I) was early1960s (I think 61/62).   I
> just don't remember the model number of the S/360's console (every device
> at IBM had numeric names), your memory is likely that the number was 7xy.
>  But as I said, I'm fair sure that the guts of the console were based on
> the Selectric's design.

Thanks for the interesting details.  Yes, that all matches my
recollection.  Originally you were talking about mid- to late 1970s,
and that's what my "much earlier" referred to.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-09 22:08                     ` dave
@ 2020-11-10  0:48                       ` grog
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: grog @ 2020-11-10  0:48 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at  9:08:44 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> The Qume printers seemed to have been the best round 1980 when we used
>> them in our applications.  In particular, a large choice of wheels and
>> fine-grained spacing.  I forget how the spacing worked.
>
> Presumably some sort of a table lookup, based on which character is about
> to be hit?  Or are you referring to the micro-spacing itself?

"Yes".  As I said, I forget.  I have a feeling that it must have been
explicit micro-spacing, since the machine didn't know anything about
the kind of daisy wheel that was fitted.

>> The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the
>> /360 itself.  The model numbers I recall were 735, and the newer
>> generation 2731/2735.  The last digit related to the carriage width
>> (11"/15").
>
> I once had a fine collection of goofballs (as we called them); sadly lost
> in a house move :-(

I was going to say "ditto", but I think I actually sold them along
with the 735.

>> Round the time in question I bought a second-hand 735 machine.  It had
>> an arcane interface that directly talked to the magnets.  I built an
>> interface for it to a parallel port [...]
>
> I'd like to know a bit more about that interface...  You'd have to
> control the carriage, roller, swivel/tilt/hit etc.

Yes, I'm trying to recall that too.  The ball itself was controlled by
6 signals: Up 1, up 2 (for the 4 rows of characters), left 1, left 2,
left 2 (yes, twice) and right 5, for a total of 11 columns.  But my
recollection was that I only had about 10 power transistors driving
the thing.  I wish I had kept more details.  Maybe there's something
amongst the useless junk in the shed.

> How did you detect the BREAK key to get the 360's attention and
> unlock the keyboard?

I didn't.  The 735 doesn't have a BREAK key.  It was a typewriter, not
a teletype.  I used it as a printer in addition to a normal glass TTY.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-10  0:10                       ` grog
@ 2020-11-10 14:48                         ` clemc
  2020-11-10 15:10                           ` stewart
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: clemc @ 2020-11-10 14:48 UTC (permalink / raw)


Fair enough, sorry to be confusing.  It is interesting that a piece of IBM
early 60s mechanical design (the electric), lasted as long as it did.  I
don't know if there was a Selectric IV, there certainly was a Selectric III
that was sold through the 70s and early 1980s.  Wang created what they
called word processing and only then did the Selectrics and Daisy Wheels
start to slowly diminish[1].   By the 80s, when we created Stellar
Computers, all of the admin's had a PC/AT and a copy of Wordperfect and
used our LaserWriters in Engineering, but we still had one Selectric for
times when a typewriter was easier.

Clem

1] A fun side story.  One of many sisters is/was a professional concert
harpist (she has incredible manual dexterity).   Tough to feed yourself as
a concert harpist, so she got a job at MIT working as Ron's admin.   Her
terminal was an ITS connection and so they taught her to edit documents
using EMACS/Tex (she actually typed the RSA papers for Ron so many years
ago using the same).   At one point, she was thinking of leaving MIT, and
when she would interview different firms, they usually would ask her if she
knew 'Wang.'   It's interesting that her MIT skills were the ones that
lasted.  For the last few years, she has worked as a technical editor/book
index creator *etc*.. for a number of research orgs and technical book
publishers -- she can handle EMACS and LaTex of course, not just MS-Word ;-)

On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 7:10 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Monday,  9 November 2020 at  9:26:05 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> The golfball console for the /360 was much earlier than that, like the
> /360
> >> itself.
> >>
> > Hmmm, I think what I said is correct. The S/360 system was released in
> > 1964. My friend Russ Roebling (360/50 chief designer ) once told me the
> > console came from the office products (typewriter) division.  I wish I
> > could remember the story he told me, but IIRC it was something WRT to
> > politics inside of IBM and ensuring the console device and the 360's
> launch
> > between the divisions.  [Just like every large firm I have worked, I'm
> not
> > really surprised to hear that divisional fiefdoms were rampant at IBM in
> > those days, too].
> >
> > I'm fairly sure that the Selectric (I) was early1960s (I think 61/62).
>  I
> > just don't remember the model number of the S/360's console (every device
> > at IBM had numeric names), your memory is likely that the number was 7xy.
> >  But as I said, I'm fair sure that the guts of the console were based on
> > the Selectric's design.
>
> Thanks for the interesting details.  Yes, that all matches my
> recollection.  Originally you were talking about mid- to late 1970s,
> and that's what my "much earlier" referred to.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
>
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature)
  2020-11-10 14:48                         ` clemc
@ 2020-11-10 15:10                           ` stewart
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: stewart @ 2020-11-10 15:10 UTC (permalink / raw)


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 863 bytes --]

Speaking of the Selectric

Another old story about printers.  Back in 1974 (ish) I was an undergrad at MIT working at the Architecture Machine Group, which was the predecessor to the Media Lab.  We had a home-grown OS for the Interdata 16-bit minicomputers, whose instruction sets were very much like 16-bit IBM 360’s.

There was an IBM 2741 there for talking to the institute mainframes, and somehow I got the job of writing a device driver for it.  It was quite an adventure getting the tilt-rotate codes and so forth to fit in the 160 hex bytes available…  I recall having to chain short branches together if the condition codes were right.

The success of that made me a go-to guy for printing, unfortunately, so later it was my job to patch the line printer to print capital O after the 0 wore out*.

* A real thing, way before Dilbert got hold of it.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
       [not found]         ` <CAC20D2PPw3Ua3-VpMYjh=NaC09=9Q528kqEvE7SvmO3Ly2JO0A@mail.gmail.com>
       [not found]           ` <175409f6-af94-601e-3db3-a5af5d7f64d0@gmail.com>
@ 2020-11-11  8:31           ` peter
  2020-11-11 12:21             ` tih
  2020-11-11 21:09             ` dave
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: peter @ 2020-11-11  8:31 UTC (permalink / raw)


On 2020-Nov-06 10:07:21 -0500, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>Will, I do still the same thing, but the reason for 72 for email being that
>way is still card-based.  In FORTRAN the first column defines if the card
>is new (a blank), a comment (a capital C), no zero a 'continuation' of the
>last card.  But column 73-80 were 'special' and used to store sequence #s
>(this was handy when you dropped your card deck, card sorters could put it
>back into canonical order).

Since no-one has mentioned it, the reason why Fortran and Cobol ignore
columns 73-80 goes back to the IBM 711 card reader - which could read any
(but usually configured for the first) 72 columns into pairs of 36-bit words
in an IBM 701.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-11  8:31           ` [COFF] " peter
@ 2020-11-11 12:21             ` tih
  2020-11-11 21:09             ` dave
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: tih @ 2020-11-11 12:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


Peter Jeremy via COFF <coff at minnie.tuhs.org> writes:

> Since no-one has mentioned it, the reason why Fortran and Cobol ignore
> columns 73-80 goes back to the IBM 711 card reader - which could read any
> (but usually configured for the first) 72 columns into pairs of 36-bit words
> in an IBM 701.

...and for those who, like me, did a double-take on that, thinking "WTF?
That would mean it read *rows* of bits from the card into machine words!",
I checked, and yes, that's exactly what it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_input/output#Binary_format

-tih (who learned FORTRAN using punched cards on a UNIVAC)
-- 
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp.  Lisp is the most important idea in computer science.  --Alan Kay


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

* [COFF] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature
  2020-11-11  8:31           ` [COFF] " peter
  2020-11-11 12:21             ` tih
@ 2020-11-11 21:09             ` dave
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 23+ messages in thread
From: dave @ 2020-11-11 21:09 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Peter Jeremy via COFF wrote:

> Since no-one has mentioned it, the reason why Fortran and Cobol ignore 
> columns 73-80 goes back to the IBM 711 card reader - which could read 
> any (but usually configured for the first) 72 columns into pairs of 
> 36-bit words in an IBM 701.

I'll be damned...  So obvious when it's pointed out!

-- Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

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2020-11-07 23:05                   ` dave
2020-11-09  4:36                   ` [COFF] Daisy wheel printers (was: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature) grog
2020-11-09 14:26                     ` clemc
2020-11-10  0:10                       ` grog
2020-11-10 14:48                         ` clemc
2020-11-10 15:10                           ` stewart
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