[TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Kevin Bowling]

I am reading some UNIX text processing books and am interested in the
lineage of Documenter's Workbench.

I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)

From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
3.2 with SysVR3.2?

Then there is a 3.3 version https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3

One of my books from the late 80s references 3.4 available as a source
code purchase independent of UNIX.

Then it appears SGI might have had a 4.x strain?  (i.e.
https://archive.org/details/sgi_Documenters_Workbench_4.1.3)

Heirloom is derived from OpenSolaris which is derived from?

Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
(I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).

Regards,
Kevin

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Larry McVoy]

I can't help with the history but I give you a thumbs up for trying to 
track it down.  The Documenter's Workbench is sort of the unsung hero
of Unix.  It is why Unix exists, Unix was done to write patents and 
troff and the Documenter's Workbench was all about that.

On Sun, Mar 06, 2022 at 06:02:44PM -0700, Kevin Bowling wrote:
> I am reading some UNIX text processing books and am interested in the
> lineage of Documenter's Workbench.
> 
> I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
> https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
> I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
> 
> >From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> 3.2 with SysVR3.2?
> 
> Then there is a 3.3 version https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3
> 
> One of my books from the late 80s references 3.4 available as a source
> code purchase independent of UNIX.
> 
> Then it appears SGI might have had a 4.x strain?  (i.e.
> https://archive.org/details/sgi_Documenters_Workbench_4.1.3)
> 
> Heirloom is derived from OpenSolaris which is derived from?
> 
> Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
> (I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).
> 
> Regards,
> Kevin

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Jaap Akkerhuis]

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> I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
> https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
> I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
> 
> From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> 3.2 with SysVR3.2?

The jump might be due to the effect that for quite a while outside
AT&T it was marketed by SoftQuad (Toronto).  (See also
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftQuad_Software>).

	jaap


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Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Kevin Bowling]

Interesting. That sounds like a different commercial strain, "SoftQuad
was started in order to improve automated typesetting at Toronto's
Coach House Press, and for many years developed an enhanced commercial
version of the text formatting program troff, developed under license
from AT&T, called sqtroff. It was sold with a suite of associated
programs, corresponding to AT&T's Documenter's Workbench, under the
name SoftQuad Publishing Software (SQPS)."

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 6:28 AM Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
> > https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
> > I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> > https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
> >
> > From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> > 3.2 with SysVR3.2?
>
> The jump might be due to the effect that for quite a while outside
> AT&T it was marketed by SoftQuad (Toronto).  (See also
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftQuad_Software>).
>
>         jaap
>

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[ozan yigit]

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This is accurate. I was briefly involved with sqtroff, because it was brought to York U
by one of the founders (david slocombe) to publish York's newsletter. 
see this for coach house press history. possibly the first (outside bell) unix-based publisher.
https://publishing.sfu.ca/2015/12/coach-house-press-early-digital-period/

... oz

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022, at 11:55 AM, Kevin Bowling wrote:
> Interesting. That sounds like a different commercial strain, "SoftQuad
> was started in order to improve automated typesetting at Toronto's
> Coach House Press, and for many years developed an enhanced commercial
> version of the text formatting program troff, developed under license
> from AT&T, called sqtroff. It was sold with a suite of associated
> programs, corresponding to AT&T's Documenter's Workbench, under the
> name SoftQuad Publishing Software (SQPS)."
> 
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 6:28 AM Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
> > > https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
> > > I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> > > https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
> > >
> > > From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> > > 3.2 with SysVR3.2?
> >
> > The jump might be due to the effect that for quite a while outside
> > AT&T it was marketed by SoftQuad (Toronto).  (See also
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftQuad_Software>).
> >
> >         jaap
> >
> 

ozan s. yigit
http://nextbit.blogspot.com
*to live fully is to wage constant battle against the mundane.* -- guy tal


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Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Kevin Bowling]

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 6:02 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
>
> I am reading some UNIX text processing books and am interested in the
> lineage of Documenter's Workbench.
>
> I see documentation of 1.0 (i.e
> https://archive.org/details/sysv-dwb/page/n5/mode/2up)
> I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
>
> From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> 3.2 with SysVR3.2?
>
> Then there is a 3.3 version https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3
>
> One of my books from the late 80s references 3.4 available as a source
> code purchase independent of UNIX.
>
> Then it appears SGI might have had a 4.x strain?  (i.e.
> https://archive.org/details/sgi_Documenters_Workbench_4.1.3)
>
> Heirloom is derived from OpenSolaris which is derived from?

http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/doctools/troff.pdf has this particular
history, interestingly it seems to be divergent from 2.x and not 3.x.

> Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
> (I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).
>
> Regards,
> Kevin

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Andrew Diller]

This image on IA installs fine on IRIX 5.x and has a number of binaries and fonts that I assume are used for making nice documentation.

https://i.imgur.com/tpCPniW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rWSmMsg.jpg


lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys           12 Mar  9 14:08 mvt -> /usr/bin/mmt
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        31760 Mar  9 14:08 macref
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        14304 Mar  9 14:08 hyphen
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       111768 Mar  9 14:08 grap
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        18592 Mar  9 14:08 makedev
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2993 Mar  9 14:08 mm
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         1736 Mar  9 14:08 mmt
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        78808 Mar  9 14:08 eqn
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        68456 Mar  9 14:08 checkmm
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        62328 Mar  9 14:08 daps
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       117512 Mar  9 14:08 checkmm1
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        62424 Mar  9 14:08 di10
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys          961 Mar  9 14:08 diffmk
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        78872 Mar  9 14:08 tbl
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         1508 Mar  9 14:08 subj
-r-xr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2313 Mar  9 14:08 vgrind
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        41768 Mar  9 14:08 tc
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       152976 Mar  9 14:08 troff
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       146088 Mar  9 14:08 pic
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         4743 Mar  9 14:08 ndx
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        61560 Mar  9 14:08 neqn
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       148432 Mar  9 14:08 nroff
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        23048 Mar  9 14:08 ptx
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        14304 Mar  9 14:08 soelim


I'm not familiar enough with dwb to know what to start with....

-andy


> On Mar 7, 2022, at 3:57 PM, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 6:02 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> 
>> Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
>> (I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Kevin

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Kevin Bowling]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 3:30 PM Andrew Diller <dillera@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This image on IA installs fine on IRIX 5.x and has a number of binaries and fonts that I assume are used for making nice documentation.
>
> https://i.imgur.com/tpCPniW.jpg
> https://i.imgur.com/rWSmMsg.jpg
>
>
> lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys           12 Mar  9 14:08 mvt -> /usr/bin/mmt
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        31760 Mar  9 14:08 macref
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        14304 Mar  9 14:08 hyphen
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       111768 Mar  9 14:08 grap
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        18592 Mar  9 14:08 makedev
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2993 Mar  9 14:08 mm
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         1736 Mar  9 14:08 mmt
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        78808 Mar  9 14:08 eqn
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        68456 Mar  9 14:08 checkmm
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        62328 Mar  9 14:08 daps
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       117512 Mar  9 14:08 checkmm1
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        62424 Mar  9 14:08 di10
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys          961 Mar  9 14:08 diffmk
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        78872 Mar  9 14:08 tbl
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         1508 Mar  9 14:08 subj
> -r-xr-xr-x    1 root     sys         2313 Mar  9 14:08 vgrind
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        41768 Mar  9 14:08 tc
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       152976 Mar  9 14:08 troff
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       146088 Mar  9 14:08 pic
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys         4743 Mar  9 14:08 ndx
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        61560 Mar  9 14:08 neqn
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys       148432 Mar  9 14:08 nroff
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        23048 Mar  9 14:08 ptx
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys        14304 Mar  9 14:08 soelim
>
>
> I'm not familiar enough with dwb to know what to start with....

It's basically a marketing name for troff and some macro packages.
You could try feeding some of these
https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3/tree/master/doc through it to see
how it works, although depending on what 4.x really is it may be a bit
of a learning experience.

Aside from the man pages and official documentation, a lot of popular
books were and still are written with it
https://www.troff.org/pubs.html

> -andy
>
>
> > On Mar 7, 2022, at 3:57 PM, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 6:02 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
> >> (I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Kevin
>

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Andrew Diller]

Thanks for the info. I managed to delve into the release notes for this package on IRIX. Seems like IRIX has a really nice tool called strangely enough 'relnotes' which will parse and show the release notes like man pages. Here are some snippets from the DWB:

------------

     Software Option Product        Documenter's
                                      Workbench

       Version                        4.1.3
       Product Code                   SC4-DWB-4.1.3

       System Software Requirements   IRIX 5.3 or later

------------

  
However they do mention this:


-------------

     1.3  Product_Support

       Silicon Graphics, Inc., provides a comprehensive product
       support maintenance program for its products.

       If you are in North America and would like support for your
       Silicon Graphics-supported products, contact the Technical
       Assistance Center at
       1-800-800-4SGI.

       If you are outside North America, contact the Silicon
       Graphics subsidiary or authorized distributor in your
       country.

---------------


But they may not answer :)


-andy



> On Mar 9, 2022, at 7:44 PM, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> It's basically a marketing name for troff and some macro packages.
> You could try feeding some of these
> https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3/tree/master/doc through it to see
> how it works, although depending on what 4.x really is it may be a bit
> of a learning experience.
> 
> Aside from the man pages and official documentation, a lot of popular
> books were and still are written with it
> https://www.troff.org/pubs.html
> 

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Dan Plassche]

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 6:02 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
>
> I see a copy of 2.0 for 3B2 (i.e.
> https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/software/Documenters_Workbench/)
>
> From there things get a little less clear, it seems like we jump to
> 3.2 with SysVR3.2?
>
> Then there is a 3.3 version https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3
>
> Can anyone firm this lineage up a bit; and is 4.x an SGI thing or what
> (I extracted the image, the relnotes inside might as well not exist).
>
> Regards,
> Kevin

I'd be interested to pin down the timeline and the major feature changes
for DWB in relation to the other troff variants as well.  Below is a
summary of my understanding from looking at the changelogs and spot
checking the various codebases.  Any additions or corrections would be
appreciated.

1979 v7 C/A/T troff released (rewritten from assembler into C)

1980-81 v7 C/A/T troff pulled into System III internally at Bell Labs
    seemingly without major changes and released in 1982

1982 public domain typesetter independent troff (ditroff or titroff) was
    the last free release as a standalone set of files on request

1983 SVR1 bundled C/A/T troff from 1981

1984 SVR2 containing DWB 2.0 incorporating ditroff (no postscript
    output yet though)

1987 SVR3 unbundled all troff versions and offered DWB 2+ as
    an add-on package

1988 postscript output added to DWB 2+

1989 SVR4 bundled DWB 2+ (Solaris and Unixware) with changes
    through mid-1988

198907 DWB 3.0 changed font tables to ascii from old binary format

199004 DWB 3.1 retired nroff for monolithic troff binary with -a flag
    for simplified ascii output (for example, tables are not formatted
    for true hardcopy output in ascii format)

I think sqtroff from Softquad was primarily sold from 1987-88 and the
main enhancement was more detailed error tracing with an improved
ditroff output language including early laserjet and postscript support.
I've only seen mentions of sqtroff 2.x releases in that timeframe.

I've been looking for the Softquad documentation and software
without much luck; apparently James Clark had a copy of the
Technical Reference manual (ISBN 0-88910-326-7) that he
used to write groff.


Best,

Dan Plassche

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Dan Plassche]

Following-up with a correction and some details about user-facing 
changes in Documenter's Workbench.

> 
> 1984 SVR2 containing DWB 2.0 incorporating ditroff (no postscript
>     output yet though)

My mistake.  I was glancing at a late copy of the 3B2 SVR2 source with 
DWB 2.0 and should have written 1.0 here.

DWB 1.0 was released in 1984 at the same time as SVR2.  Changes from v7 
troff are the inclusion of ditroff as troff, C/A/T troff as otroff, the 
mm macros, pic, and sroff.  The sroff command provided a faster 
simplified interpreter for line printer output.

> 1987 SVR3 unbundled all troff versions and offered DWB 2+ as
>     an add-on package

DWB 2.0 was released in 1986.  This verison added grap and the mptx 
indexing macros while removing otroff and sroff.  Elan eroff for DOS and 
sqtroff were based on DWB 2.

DWB 2+ was generally available after 1987 as an optional binary add-on 
package at added cost.

SVR4 troff included the postscript output formatter added to the 
codebase in mid-1988 (tracked in Research UNIX v9), but not grap.
 
> 198907 DWB 3.0 changed font tables to ascii from old binary format
> 
> 199004 DWB 3.1 retired nroff for monolithic troff binary with -a flag
>     for simplified ascii output (for example, tables are not formatted
>     for true hardcopy output in ascii format)

199202 DWB 3.2 was released with mpm macros for automatic vertical page 
justification, 8-bit clean i/o, and picasso visual line drawing 
interface using the OPEN LOOK toolkit

199207 DWB 3.3 contained a new version of tbl and the mpm macro package 
to customize postscript color and page formats

199311 DWB 3.4 with new spell check, dwb command to guess processor 
pipeline, postscript file layout tools, and X11 viewers (xhbt for 
eqn/pic/tbl figures and dwbman for hypertext navigation of manpages)

I hope this is a helpful summary.  I've been working on a more detailed 
timeline tracking the versions shipped by different UNIX vendors.  
Also testing C/A/T troff to postscript converters (Adobe transcript, 
Chris Lewis' psroff, and jetroff) to approximate older output in 
comparison to the excellent heirloom doctools.


Thanks,

Dan Plassche

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Warren Toomey]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2022 at 06:02:44PM -0700, Kevin Bowling wrote:
> I am reading some UNIX text processing books and am interested in the
> lineage of Documenter's Workbench.
	
Ozan Yigit just gave me a copy of DWB 1.0 to add to the Unix Archive:

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Documenters_Workbench

   I have a complete distro of dwb. was obtained by me while I was at the
   Dept. of Computer Science at York University to drive our Imagen laser
   printer. The content is simply man pages and sources.

   Nothing else was included in the tape. (no long copyright notice etc).
   Whatever paperwork we had filled to get the tape probably lost in the
   paper clippings of time.

   The files indicate this is "DOCUMENTER'S WORKBENCH 1.0". The file dates
   are from 1986, but I don't recall when we actually requested the tape.

Cheers, Warren

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Douglas McIlroy]

> The Documenter's Workbench is sort of the unsung hero
> of Unix.  It is why Unix exists, Unix was done to write patents and
> troff and the Documenter's Workbench was all about that.

My response along the following lines seems to have gone astray.

The prime reason for Unix was the desire of Ken, Dennis, and Joe
Ossanna to have a pleasant environment for software development.
The fig leaf that got the nod from Multics-burned management was
that an early use would be to develop a "stand-alone" word-processing
system for use in typing pools and secretarial offices. Perhaps they
had in mind "dedicated", as distinct from "stand-alone"; that's
what eventuated in various cases, most notably in the legal/patent
department and in the AT&T CEO's office.

Both those systems were targets of opportunity, not foreseen from the
start. When Unix was up and running on the PDP-11, Joe got wind of
the legal department having installed a commercial word processor.
He went to pitch Unix as an alternative and clinched a trial by
promising to make roff able to number lines by tomorrow in order to
fulfill a patent-office requirement that the commercial system did
not support.

Modems were installed so legal-department secretaries could try the
Research machine. They liked it and Joe's superb customer service.
Soon the legal department got a system of their own. Joe went on to
create nroff and troff. Document preparation became a widespread use
of Unix, but no stand-alone word-processing system was ever undertaken.

Doug

Re: [TUHS] Documenter's Workbench versions

[Jaap Akkerhuis]

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> On Mar 9, 2022, at 3:06, Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> 
> <SNIP>
> Document preparation became a widespread use
> of Unix, but no stand-alone word-processing system was ever undertaken.

I do seem to remember an attempt by some outfit to sell a standalone
word processors based on troff, but U don't remember the name.  It
wasn't a success and failed very quickly.

	jaap


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