[TUHS] Re: Old troff files (1988-2007)

["G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>]

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[dropped Clem and Leah from CC]

Hi Doug,

At 2024-10-08T10:33:35+0000, Jacobson, Doug W [E CPE] wrote:
> Using Groff (eqn+pic) + grap I was able to create a PDF of the book.
> It took about 8 hours

8-O

> part of which was figuring out the syntax differences.

Oh, wall clock time including human engagement.  That sounds really
reasonable!  I'm not sure I want to estimate how many hours I've put
into revising groff's own documentation.  Or ncurses's.

Eight hours processing time on a modern machine (without inflooping)
would be shocking to me.

> He had divided the book up into a file for each page or two, so 100+
> files.  I think he did that, so he did not waste paper since he had to
> print out the pages to see if they looked right, no display to view
> them.

No PostScript or PDF preview program?  I can think of a few: mupdf,
evince, okular.  Deri James (groff developer) can probably name a dozen.

> It was not perfect but is good enough for the publisher to review.
> The book is on filters (EE book) and is full of graphs, circuits, and
> equations.  He used pic to draw the circuits, which was amazing.  This
> was fun to take a forgotten manuscript written by a colleague and with
> luck maybe getting it published while he is still alive.  If the
> publisher wants to publish it, I'm not sure how they will handle troff
> files :)

If you'd care to share it with me in my capacity as groff maintainer,
I'd be interested to use it for unofficial regression testing.

Alternatively, if you can't find an interested publisher, please
consider asking the author (I assume he's also the copyright holder) to
release it under a Creative Commons license so the whole world can
enjoy.  Also, so I can selfishly enjoy the pleasure of pointing to a
sophisticated typeset work and saying, "look what groff can do!"  ;-)

(Just in case people aren't impressed enough with K&R or W. Richard
Stevens.)

Regards,
Branden

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