From: Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com>
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] roff(7)
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:11:20 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <202201010111.2011BK62034004@ultimate.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn3bZ2Ac99gTknNRd8CVMAQB0+ArbtYCU9OOdOeLJvw-iA@mail.gmail.com>
> In 79-82 Runoff got me my undergraduate texts formatted on a dec10.
>
> Moving to work post degree on Unix and vms systems (my memory is that for
> some reason VMS didn't have runoff) I had the Normalised "oh this must be
> the same" hitting roff/nroff and got really confused by having both ms and
> me macros.
I similarly moved from the DEC 36-bit RUNOFF world. I was confused
why anyone would need macros, until I typed in a paper, and didn't get
any page numbers!! I'm 99.44% sure the VMS world got something called
DSR (Digital Standard Runoff) at some point (likely written in BLISS).
DEC-10/20 RUNOFF files did not always format correctly under DSR (DEC
"standards" tended to be, the VMS team implements what they want, and
they adjust the standard).
I wondered about the RUNOFF/roff connection until I learned about CTSS,
and was perplexed by IBM SCRIPT, which clearly had shared heritage,
but didn't start with the letter r, but Wikipedia just told me:
The origin of IBM's SCRIPT (markup) software began in 1968
when "IBM contracted Stuart Madnick of MIT to write a simple
document preparation ..."[8] to run on CP/67.[9] He modeled it
on MIT's CTSS RUNOFF.[10][11]
So it must be true! Look at all the footnotes!
But I was MOST perplexed when I was helping bring PDP-7 UNIX back up
(I cobbled a replacement shell together), and found PDP-7 roff was
as (or more) feeble than nroff without using a macro package
(for fun, I tried writing some man pages, tho I was pretty sure
on-line documentation didn't come about until PDP-11 days)), only
without a macro facility!
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-01-01 1:11 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 101+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-12-31 15:47 Douglas McIlroy
2021-12-31 23:07 ` George Michaelson
2021-12-31 23:40 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-01 0:56 ` [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-01 3:15 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-10 19:00 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-10 20:21 ` Jon Forrest
2022-01-11 22:48 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-11 23:18 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 1:19 ` Dave Horsfall
2022-01-12 1:46 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:12 ` Bakul Shah
2022-01-12 15:49 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 16:22 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 0:06 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-12 1:48 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 0:29 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-12 1:53 ` Blake McBride
[not found] ` <E3CC4B8A-4E88-4339-A4D3-4ED26BA80620@gmail.com>
2022-01-12 0:44 ` Jon Forrest
2022-01-12 2:00 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:10 ` David Arnold
2022-01-12 2:26 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 19:54 ` John Cowan
2022-01-13 10:13 ` Thomas Paulsen
2022-01-13 20:00 ` John Cowan
2022-01-10 20:33 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-10 20:37 ` Richard Salz
2022-01-10 21:04 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-10 21:48 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-11 2:25 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2022-01-11 2:47 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-22 2:34 ` [TUHS] troff environments, traps, and diversions (was: TeX and groff) Branden Robinson
2022-01-22 16:02 ` Douglas McIlroy
2022-01-23 19:45 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-23 22:26 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 1:52 ` [TUHS] Recognizing TeX (was: TeX and groff (was: roff(7))) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 1:19 ` [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Mary Ann Horton
2022-01-12 2:03 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:10 ` Bakul Shah
2022-01-12 3:44 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 16:48 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2022-01-10 20:46 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2022-01-11 1:59 ` [TUHS] Demise of " Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-11 2:13 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2022-01-11 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 5:12 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-11 5:59 ` John Labovitz
2022-01-11 8:57 ` arnold
2022-01-11 20:15 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:22 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 20:26 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:36 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 20:41 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:49 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 21:03 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 8:50 ` arnold
2022-01-11 14:00 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 23:22 ` [TUHS] troff or groff? (was: Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7))) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 23:29 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 23:32 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 15:47 ` [TUHS] Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Clem Cole
2022-01-11 16:55 ` Richard Salz
2022-01-11 18:49 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 19:20 ` John Cowan
2022-01-11 20:06 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 23:57 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-12 0:03 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-12 8:54 ` arnold
2022-01-12 15:17 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 16:33 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 18:06 ` [TUHS] *roff history as told to GNU G. Branden Robinson
2022-01-12 18:34 ` Dan Halbert
2022-01-12 22:48 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 23:27 ` Charles H. Sauer
2022-01-13 0:35 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 20:01 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 22:32 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-13 2:38 ` John Labovitz
2022-01-13 7:42 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2022-01-13 13:47 ` John Labovitz
2022-01-12 8:48 ` [TUHS] Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) arnold
2022-01-12 15:51 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 15:57 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 15:56 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 3:22 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 0:32 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-01 20:00 ` [TUHS] roff(7) [ and other related stuff ] Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 0:12 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 1:04 ` John Cowan
2022-01-02 1:20 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 1:47 ` Steve Nickolas
2022-01-02 2:12 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 3:56 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 1:48 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 3:04 ` John Cowan
2022-01-02 3:30 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-01 1:11 ` Phil Budne [this message]
2022-01-01 1:17 ` [TUHS] roff(7) Chris Torek
2022-01-01 3:06 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-01 3:34 ` George Michaelson
2022-01-05 21:15 ` Tony Finch
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