[TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual?

[Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>]

G. Branden Robinson wrote:

> My belief, based on the evidence I have from these publications
> colophons reporting which phototypesetter was used, is that the \(sq
> special character was not filled in Graphic Systems C/A/T fonts used by
> Bell Labs,

I disagree.  While the "NROFF/TROFF User's Manual" document proves
that \(sq was hollow in all 3 fonts _as of 1976-10-11_ (the original
date of this doc), bwk's document from 1978-08-04 indicates that this
char had to have changed to a filled square by this date.  However,
troff in 1978 was still completely, utterly incapable of driving
anything other than a C/A/T!  Now bwk, the author of this doc, is the
very same fine gentleman who wrote ditroff, the creature that was
finally capable of driving a Linotron 202 or Autologic APS-5 or
whatever - but the timeline does not match up.  BWK's troff tutorial
is dated 1978-08-04, but his work on ditroff (as I understand it)
happened some time around 1980 or 1981.  He may have started ditroff
work in 1979, but definitely not in 1978.

> but _was_ filled in the bold face by the Autologic APS-5.

4.3BSD Usenix books prove otherwise: these must have been troffed on
APS-5, as many notes from that time attest, but they feature hollow
square in bold.  Even eqnchar(7) is "wrong" in 4.3BSD print in that
"blot" is a hollow square, clearly counter to original intent of that
named eqn character.

> I have documented this understanding in the groff_char(7) man page,

Ahh, so you are involved with groff - got it.  I wrote my own version
of troff (based on V7, running under 4.3BSD and directly emitting
DSC-conforming PostScript) in 3 "bursts" of work around 2004, 2010 and
2012, but I never got around to releasing it.  I am now in the process
of cleaning it up for release, hoping to finally have it out in another
week or two.  And I put a _lot_ of work into replicating the original
troff character set...

> Also, my copies of these books are overseas, but I seem to remember that
> the Holt/Reinhart/Winston (HRW) 1983 reprint of the Seventh Edition

Thank you for clarifying what HRW is - so this 1983 version of 7th ed
UPM is *not* the original?

> > What was the physical form of this book?  Was it a "perfect bound"
> > book?
>
> The HRW copies I have are perfect bound.  But I can't remember if they
> were 3-hole punched as well.

Thank you for the clarification!  But if HRW version is not the
original, then what was the original like?

> Where did you discover the identity and date of the 1998 retypeset of
> the V7 Volume 2 manual?

https://plan9.io/7thEdMan/bswv7.html
http://web.cuzuco.com/~cuzuco/v7/

The second page includes a link to this tarball:

http://web.cuzuco.com/~cuzuco/v7/v7add.tar.gz

Dates inside that tarball are 1998-12-13.  There was also a place
where Brian missed the retroffing date - see page 287 of his
v7vol2a.pdf.

> I have wondered about this for years.  In part
> to complain, because while it is a _fairly_ faithful reproduction of the
> original, it is not perfect,

What _I_ don't like about BSW's PDF rendition of V7 manuals is that it
is a sort of "closed source" product: there is no published source
package that retraces every step in the flow from ancient troff sources
to the finished product.

In the same 3 "bursts" of activity (2004, 2010 and 2012) when I worked
on my own version of troff, I also worked toward doing a PostScript
reprint of 4.3BSD Usenix books.  4.3BSD happens to be my personally
preferred version of UNIX, but the same methods I use for 4.3BSD books
can also be applied to V7.  I am hoping that in the next week or two I
will find time to release not only my version of troff, but also the
partial set of 4.3BSD books I got done so far.

Out of the 7 books that comprise 4.3BSD Usenix set, the breakdown is
as follows:

* URM, PRM and USD: I got these done already, only need to write new
colophons to be added to the end of each book.  These are the ones I
am hoping to put out Real Soon Now.

* PS1, PS2 and SMM remain to be worked on, but are part of my more
distant plans.

* The "Master Index" volume, I plan to skip that one - too difficult,
and non-essential in my view.

And yes, I am much more "perfectionist" about replicating troff details
than BSW was for his V7 PDF version.

M~