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, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 17271 invoked from network); 10 Aug 2022 15:05:55 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 10 Aug 2022 15:05:55 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB9D0406E3; Thu, 11 Aug 2022 01:05:30 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (freefriends.org [96.88.95.60]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7B7274012F for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2022 01:05:24 +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 27AF5Lvp020962 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 10 Aug 2022 09:05:21 -0600 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7/Submit) id 27AF5Ko7020961; Wed, 10 Aug 2022 09:05:20 -0600 From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <202208101505.27AF5Ko7020961@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2022 09:05:20 -0600 To: tuhs@tuhs.org, douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu References: 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 Message-ID-Hash: TKSLC5RRLL4PI7IQA4RY4HC7R6B7GSYQ X-Message-ID-Hash: TKSLC5RRLL4PI7IQA4RY4HC7R6B7GSYQ X-MailFrom: arnold@skeeve.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Hi All. Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), > > I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to > Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: > Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) > From: Brian Kernighan > To: arnold@skeeve.com > Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again > > I don't know that I would read too much into the development of > Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up > anyway. > > One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot > easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so > that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of > troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the > primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" > wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the > Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator > that I think I wrote. > > The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, > since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, > while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y > values). > > But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point.