From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 19874 invoked from network); 1 Jan 2022 01:11:50 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 1 Jan 2022 01:11:50 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id A5FAA9D065; Sat, 1 Jan 2022 11:11:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1E9D9CF51; Sat, 1 Jan 2022 11:11:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 9A9629CF51; Sat, 1 Jan 2022 11:11:23 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.ultimate.com (mail.ultimate.com [104.225.1.121]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 86A289CF06 for ; Sat, 1 Jan 2022 11:11:21 +1000 (AEST) Received: from ultimate.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.ultimate.com (8.16.1/8.16.1) with ESMTPS id 2011BKHM034005 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:11:20 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from phil@ultimate.com) Received: (from phil@localhost) by ultimate.com (8.16.1/8.16.1/Submit) id 2011BK62034004 for tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org; Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:11:20 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from phil) From: Phil Budne Message-Id: <202201010111.2011BK62034004@ultimate.com> Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:11:20 -0500 To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org References: In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] roff(7) X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" > 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!