[TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual?

[Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>]

Hi Matt,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my odd inquiry!

> In any case, there's a second Volume 2 binder, also V7 [...]
> Would just be Volume 2 stuff but that represents much more typographical
> variety.
>
> I additionally have an almost complete Usenix 4.2BSD set, just missing the
> Programmer's Reference Guide, so if you're interested in any visual
> inspections between the two, happy to sit down at my desk with the magnifying
> glass tonight and see if I can help out with what you're working on.

The main thing I am looking for is either confirmation or refutation
of my hypothesis that those Vol2 docs that aren't Berkeley-new have
remained entirely unchanged (and *not* retroffed) between V7 and 4.2BSD
Usenix print.  Perhaps flip through a few randomly selected docs and
see if all page breaks line up exactly or not - when UCB/Usenix
retroffed these docs for 4.3BSD, they used a newer typesetter (APS-5)
driven by a slightly newer troff (early ditroff), and the font metrics
are different enough to displace line breaks and page breaks throughout
the corpus of the text.

Also if you have time, here are some specific spots in V7 Vol2 which I
would appreciate getting looked at:

* Vol 2a doc 8, "Typing Documents on the UNIX System", M. E. Lesk: the
last page of this paper exhibits a "Figure 1" drawing that appears to
have been done literally by hand, with someone taking a pen (or pencil
or whatever other handwriting implement) to the output of the typesetter
(was it photographic paper that had to be developed first?) and drawing
the figure, before the resulting master was then used for mass
reproduction.  In Erica's scan of 4.2BSD UNIX User's Manual Supplementary
docs book, this hand drawing appears on page 346.  Does it look exactly
the same in V7 original?

* Vol 2a doc 12, "NROFF/TROFF User's Manual", J. F. Ossanna - please
look at the following details:

- in Table I (Font Style Examples), is the square character hollow in
all 3 fonts (like in 4.2BSD print), or is it filled in bold or in any
other font?

- the two pointing hand characters in Special Mathematical Font, do
they look exactly the same between V7 and 4.2BSD?

- if you spot any other diffs, please let me know!

* Vol 2a doc 13, "A TROFF Tutorial", B. W. Kernighan: is there a final
page titled "Appendix A: Phototypesetter Character Set", or is it
missing?  This page comes from ttcharset troff source file, it is
included in Brian S. Walden's 1998 PDF reprint, but it is missing in
both 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD prints from Usenix.

- If this Appendix A page is included, how does \(sq look?  Is it
hollow in the main table but filled in bold, or is hollow in both
places?  (Or something else?)

* Vol 2a doc 16, "Make - A Program for Maintaining Computer Programs",
S. I. Feldman: first of all, do page breaks line up perfectly between
V7 and 4.2BSD prints?  If they do, please look at the top of page
labeled "- 6 -": there is a drawing that was apparently done by hand,
similarly to the one in the -ms document, although this one is a bit
simpler.  Does it look like the drawing in 4.2BSD version is exactly
the same as in V7?

* Vol 2b doc 31, "UNIX Implementation", K. Thompson: does it look
exactly the same between V7 and 4.2BSD?  Do all page breaks line up?
There is Fig 1 on page 2 and Fig 2 on page 8 - do they look the same
between the two prints?  Once again, it is a mystery to me how these
two figures were produced originally: pic didn't exist yet, and the
troff source only leaves blank space for each figure.  But they don't
look hand-drawn either - so how were they made...

Finally, in Volume 1 - how does eqnchar(7) page look in the original
V7 version?  The version in 4.2BSD print was clearly retroffed anew,
as the date in the footer is 1983 - so I wonder how the original V7
version looked.  Is the "blot" character a black filled square, or is
it something else?  Are "square" and "circle" just above it both
hollow?

TIA for all this scrutiny,
Your resident troff nut Mychaela