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 8526 invoked from network); 12 Jan 2022 08:54:35 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 12 Jan 2022 08:54:35 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 15ECE9D02C; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 18:54:32 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1DB699CFCA; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 18:54:18 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id A65819CFCA; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 18:54:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (freefriends.org [96.88.95.60]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3692A9C78F for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 18:54:16 +1000 (AEST) X-Envelope-From: arnold@skeeve.com Received: from freefriends.org (freefriends.org [96.88.95.60]) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7) with ESMTP id 20C8sDif014234 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 12 Jan 2022 01:54:14 -0700 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7/Submit) id 20C8sDRR014233; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 01:54:13 -0700 From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <202201120854.20C8sDRR014233@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 01:54:13 -0700 To: clemc@ccc.com References: <20211231234039.GU31637@mcvoy.com> <20220101005605.GL75481@eureka.lemis.com> <20220101031511.GB8135@mcvoy.com> <20220111015901.GE25103@eureka.lemis.com> <4409b91cd794867d@orthanc.ca> <20220111024218.GE3441@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] Demise of TeX and groff (was: 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: , Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Clem, Once again, you have the timeline wrong on all this. The ditroff work was started in the summer of 1979, well after V6, Typesetter C and V7. Details are available at https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/202paper.pdf and https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/summer.reconstructed.pdf. Perhaps Doug can set the history straight on troff. Here is my understanding, corrections (from Doug) welcome: - Ossanna wrote the original nroff in assembly language - He rewrote it in C when the C/A/T was acquired At that time nroff/troff were built from mostly the same sources (as can be seen in the archives). Thanks, Arnold Clem Cole wrote: > After Joe died and the BTL crew got a new APS5 typesetter, Brian set out to > rewrite the code base to support any typesetting by using traditional > compiler technology of converting the input to an ASCII representation that > is walked by a seperate program that generates the device specific output. > In fact it was this work (original done on V6) that forced Dennis (and I > assume Steve Johnson) to update the C language a bit - which is what is > described in K&R1. Brian's code and a version of DMR's updated C compiler > was released independently as a package - hence the term 'typesetter C.' > This compiler and the new document system took a seperate license. I had > it at both CMU in the 70s and Tektronix -- I think Steve Glaser had it at > Rice also - again ask someone else for other sites, including some of the > early European ones. > > Later Brian's work was updated after V7 and included some new tools, and > became known as Writer's Workbench, which eventually was entered in the > 'toolchest.' > > At the time of the first release Brian published a paper / TR that > describes the new version of troff (a.ka. ditroff), including some level of > documentation for the intermediate language. That was published and would > have been officially available to James.