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 17941 invoked from network); 12 Jan 2022 23:32:34 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 12 Jan 2022 23:32:34 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E42B49CFE7; Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:32:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2074B9CF7E; Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:32:22 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 227749CF7E; Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:32:21 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BCDE99C78F for ; Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:32:20 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 515DC35E5FF; Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:32:20 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:32:20 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey Message-ID: <20220112233220.GZ7175@mcvoy.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> <202201110850.20B8oeMZ020212@freefriends.org> <20220111140005.GI3441@mcvoy.com> <20220112232258.GK61872@eureka.lemis.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20220112232258.GK61872@eureka.lemis.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Subject: Re: [TUHS] troff or groff? (was: 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@minnie.tuhs.org, douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:22:58AM +1100, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > On Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 6:00:05 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > > It may be ancient history but troff was not a given on every > > platform. nroff was there but troff was considered optional, you > > had to pay for it and a lot of vendors didn't see the value. So the > > docs and you weren't sure if you would have it at your next job, not > > good. > > I've never used real troff, just groff. But from the man pages I > understood that real troff only generated output for specific > typesetters, while groff generated PostScript. Not so? Yeah, it's been hashed out in this thread. I think originally it was for a C/A/T thingy, then somebody did a DVI which a virtual thingy with "drivers" for each target thingy, and then there was a pay version for postscript and then groff. Or something like that, if you read through this thread it's been hashed out pretty hard. And over on the groff mailing list they are putting the history in a man page going all the way back to RUNOFF. Loving the interest in roff, it's my favorite for writing papers or docs. Have developed a bit of a taste for asciidoc for simple stuff for the web. --lm