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 15554 invoked from network); 7 Jan 2024 12:12:41 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 7 Jan 2024 12:12:41 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A734143F71; Sun, 7 Jan 2024 22:12:35 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (frenzy.freefriends.org [198.99.81.75]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B889543F70 for ; Sun, 7 Jan 2024 22:12:28 +1000 (AEST) X-Envelope-From: arnold@skeeve.com Received: from freefriends.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7) with ESMTP id 407CCMfr001415 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 7 Jan 2024 05:12:22 -0700 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7/Submit) id 407CCLGa001414; Sun, 7 Jan 2024 05:12:21 -0700 From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <202401071212.407CCLGa001414@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2024 05:12:21 -0700 To: tuhs@tuhs.org, tuhs@cuzuco.com References: <20240105221729.371EA37401DA@freecalypso.org> <20240106030254.B8D7537401FF@freecalypso.org> <20240106032236.llpryldqt7lbondn@illithid> <202401071055.407Ast6p014321@cuzuco.com> In-Reply-To: <202401071055.407Ast6p014321@cuzuco.com> 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: PAELUWOBMA3Y4IX2F2S5TWETRLW53CX6 X-Message-ID-Hash: PAELUWOBMA3Y4IX2F2S5TWETRLW53CX6 X-MailFrom: arnold@skeeve.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; 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: Original print of V7 manual? List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Thanks for this history Brian. It was a long time ago, but I think all I did was figure out how to turn the PDF back into postscript, since I had a postscript printer at the time and it was easier for me to print postscript. I sent the files to Dennis _only_ with the thought that they might be useful to other people, and certainly with no intent to steal any credit. Your files were great; I printed out hardcopy at the time and still have them on a shelf in my basement. Thanks! Arnold Brian Walden wrote: > Since this is my work, and it was the first PDF produced from the troff > sources. So let me set the stage, and this should answer some of the > issues you and others have with my work. This was 25 years ago. > There were not any scanned images of these documents it be > found anywhere online. There was only the incomplete troff sources that were > available on a bell labs web page, and that was hardly usable. I wanted an > online human readable, computer searchable and a print it anywhere document. > That meant one format to me, PDF. > > So I went about to produce one. It was so much harder than anticipated. > I spent a lot of my spare time doing it, it took me months to complete. > Someone all ready posted my notes on how I made it in an earlier message. > Once I got it to a state where I was happy with it, I stopped. Also the > only thing I had to compare my version to was a physical copy of a reprint > of the The Bell System Technical Journal Vol 57, No 6, Part 2, July-August > 1978 (It had a red cover with the AT&T death star logo, not the original blue > cover, nor the 1984 version with a yellow cover). And the book's pages > were not US printer paper size of 8.5"x11" but were 5"x8". > > It was made under Solaris 2.6, on an Ultra 2 ("Pulsar"), using the troff, tbl, > eqn, pic, refer and macros as supplied by Sun at that time, and NOT any GNU > ones. Why? These were the versions written by AT&T that Sun got directly from > them during their SVR4 collaboration. I used the PostScript output option to > troff (which obviously did not exist in 1979). That code to produce PostScript > outout, had a high probability of being written by the graphics group run by > Nils-Peter Nelson in Russ Archer's Murray Hill Computer Center (department > 45268). As in the mid 1980s, the computer centers had a SRP (small remote > printer) initiative that deployed QMS laser printers (they could only do > PostScript level 1) in common areas near where their users were, and connected > via datakit or direct serial lines. These QMS printers obsoleted the large > and chemically nasty phototypesetters, so they all disappeared from the > computer centers. > > Anyway, now I have a whole bunch of PostScript files, that is hardly > usable to read on screen. Nor very searchable, and ONLY printable on > PostScript printers. The place I was working at the time decided to save > a few dollars, they did not get Adobe licenses for most of their printers, > so they could only print PCL. Luckily the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 3) > which was available on most platforms, could print to PCL. So I need to convert > this into PDF. In 1998 there are not too many options. I tried ghostscript but > it was too immature to produce anything acceptable to me. I ended up buying my > own Adobe Distiller out of pocket, the Windows 95 version, since it was much > cheaper than the Solaris as that was only available as a Distiller "server" > version. > > So I then transferred the PostScript files to my windows machine and turned > them into the 3 PDFs. But there was a bug in Distiller, it had and offset > problem on the lines of every tbl, eqn, or pic, on every platform it was > an obvious problem, either viewing it on screen or printing it (both PS and > PCL). So I wrote a awk script to modify many of the PostScript files to fix > the wrong offset. If you viewed or printed a modified PS file, it looked like > it had offset error, but now in the opposite direction. But once distilled > into a PDF, that PDF looked and printed like it should. So those modified PS > files wound be of no value to share. I then manually add the bookmarks and > blank pages that allowed two side printing using the same windows distiller. > > I had shown it to some others and they thought it was pretty great. But I > cannot publish nor host these as this is not my intellectual property and > I would need permission. At this time there was not very much available on > TUHS, some binary versions all without any source code, that you could boot > up on SIMH. > > I decided I should drop a note to Dennis Ritchie with a copy of the PDFs > to see what he tought. Since I had known Dennis slightly from my time working > at Murray Hill. I lived across the street from the labs on Burlington Rd and > skateboarded into work. It was just across the east employee parking lot, and I > would use that eastern entrance. Dennis also lived in the neighborhood, a > bit farther from the labs than me, in a cul-de-sac. For a full week once, > Dennis kept the complete opposite hours than I did. We would passed each other > at the guard station at the entrance. After a few times it got to be a bit > comical. Me entering 9ish, "good night Dennis" He would smile. Me leaving > 5-6ish: "good morning Dennis". We would exchange pleasantries. I had > to walk the skateboard past the guard a bit and not jump back on it, else the > guard would give chase, yelling not to skate in the hallway. I always had the > idea if someone wanted to sneak into the labs they'd just need to wait for > me to go in in the morning, and once the guard was chasing me, they could just > walk on in unchallenged. If you worked in MH from 1990-1992 and saw someone > on a black on top, neon green bottom skateboard, headed from 2F-164 to the > stock room, that was me. > > Dennis really like the PDFs, and we had a email discussion on what to do with > it as it was a derivative work of copyrighted material that I did not have the > rights to. He said he needed to do some checking (lawyers?). Eventually he > said they would host the PDFs, as it was their property, but would give me > full credit for producing it. And once it was freely available on their site, > anyone, including myself, could host copies. I provided Dennis with all the > added files and all the modified versions of their files, the new run shell and > sed scripts and even the awk postscript pre-distiller fixer script. He (or > Lucent) declined not put them up along side the PDFs, for whatever reason, > and since they were not providing them, I was not to give out those files > either. Only files I made myself or the files I found that were all ready > available by Lucent (such as the missing headers) were OK for me to host too. > This is that v7add.tar.gz file you found, that I only hosted. > > I also decided (and I told Dennis) I was going to make it so I could identify > the PDF files that was my work. In volume 2B, I fixed the typo "oe" to "one" > on the RATFOR paper, and I figured no one is going to put in a typo back in. > In volume 2A on the "UNIX Programming" page I left the .ND macro as is so > it would print the date it was troff'd (December 3, 1998). > > I did have a volume 2A that also had the correct 7th Edition C Reference Manual > in it. The one you get in my 1988 PDF is from the 6th Edition, notice it is > the old =+ syntax and not the += one. Dennis said that not even Lucent could > provide that as a free PDF, as it was a published book by Prentice-Hall. I > was asked to destroy all PDFs that had that version in it. > > I was going to do something similar to volume 1, but I forgot to do it > before that December 3rd run and it got sent to Dennis without a change. > And I was not going to tell Dennis and say hey pull that one down and put > this one up, thanks. Too late is simply too late. > > That at some point after they had been out for a while I noticed Dennis added > gzipped postscript versions of them, and credited it to Aharon Robbins, who > still posts here. I was upset at first, as it looked like half the credit was > going to someone who did a print to file and then ran gzip on it. And second, > the point of the PDF was so it could print anywhere, those cannot. Anyway > I got over it, as none it was mine to start with. And most would probably > use the PDF anyway. > > Larry McVoy asked me for my modified files to make the PDFs too, in 1999 or > 2000, for bitkeeper or bitsavers. But since I was not allowed to share them > and I had moved companies, I had lost them. I thought I had saved a copy but > I could no longer find it. I asked Dennis if he still had them, he did not. > This work is truly lost. > > The next, and last, time I saw Dennis was at the 2000 Summer USENIX in San > Diego. I just thought it was funny the looks I got from people when he came > up to me to say hello. > > -Brian > > Mychaela Falconia wrote: > > 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~ > >