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From: joe mcguckin <joe@via.net>
To: Aharon Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org, douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu
Subject: [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2022 11:24:09 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <55D3A193-2CD3-4876-9D43-65F3D6FEAC86@via.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202208101737.27AHbupN011923@freefriends.org>

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I used to work for a computer manufacturer that was nearly dead - lots of cubicles piled full of junk. The reference manuals had these very nice diagrams of the 
computer boards detailing the connectors on the board edges. Imagine my surprise when I discovered all the artwork was PIC generated…

Joe


Joe McGuckin
ViaNet Communications

joe@via.net
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> On Aug 10, 2022, at 10:37 AM, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> 
> Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that
> you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results
> from looking at the code.
> 
> Arnold
> 
> Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
>> Well, I stand behind my comments.  Take a look at what xfig(1) 
>> produces and contrast that with even an average pic(1) source
>> file.  You can't see what xfig is saying but you can easily see
>> what pic is saying.
>> 
>> Maybe people just haven't written much pic, but what you can do
>> with it, and see without rendering it, is pretty amazing.
>> 
>> I got James Clark to add the 'i'th concept so you could do for
>> loops to lay out elements and I wrote a pic script where you 
>> could set variables like cpus, networks, disks and it would
>> draw different configurations of a SPARCcluster.  
>> 
>> Pic is pretty neat, I find it easier to read than any of the
>> other troff preprocessors.
>> 
>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 09:05:20AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
>>> Hi All.
>>> 
>>> Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> 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 <bwk@cs.princeton.edu>
>>>> 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.
>> 
>> -- 
>> ---
>> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat


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  parent reply	other threads:[~2022-08-10 18:25 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-08-09 22:18 Douglas McIlroy
2022-08-09 22:25 ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold
2022-08-10 17:14   ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-10 17:37     ` arnold
2022-08-10 17:44       ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] Jon Steinhart
2022-08-10 18:02         ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-10 18:04           ` Jon Steinhart
2022-08-10 18:13             ` [TUHS] Re: pic Michael Kjörling
2022-08-10 18:19             ` Dennis Boone
2022-08-10 18:24               ` Jon Steinhart
2022-08-11  0:10                 ` Dan Cross
2022-08-11 12:13                   ` arnold
2022-08-11 14:34                     ` Dan Cross
2022-08-12  1:52                       ` G. Branden Robinson
2022-08-12  6:46                         ` arnold
2022-08-12 20:49                           ` G. Branden Robinson
2022-08-11  7:37           ` [TUHS] Re: pic's One-way Information Flow. (Was: SNOBOL and RATSNO) Ralph Corderoy
2022-08-10 18:24       ` joe mcguckin [this message]
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2022-08-09 17:42 [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO Noel Chiappa
2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-09 18:54   ` Tom Teixeira
2022-08-09 19:00     ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-09 19:21       ` Marshall Conover
2022-08-09 20:19         ` Warner Losh
2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick
2022-08-10 21:30   ` John Cowan
2022-08-11 16:08     ` Marc Donner
2022-07-23  2:57 [TUHS] Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? segaloco via TUHS
2022-07-23  5:56 ` [TUHS] " markus schnalke
2022-07-23  7:55   ` segaloco via TUHS
2022-07-23 11:01     ` Dan Cross
2022-07-23 11:20       ` John Cowan
2022-07-23 12:00         ` Dan Cross
2022-07-24 19:02           ` Tomasz Rola
2022-07-28  0:30             ` Tomasz Rola
2022-07-28  1:03               ` Phil Budne
2022-07-28  4:13                 ` [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO William H. Mitchell
2022-07-29  4:28                   ` [TUHS] " Dave Horsfall
2022-07-29  5:07                   ` Tomasz Rola
2022-08-09  5:12                     ` Jonathan Gevaryahu
2022-08-09  6:11                       ` Rob Pike
2022-08-09 13:34                         ` Clem Cole
2022-08-09 15:15                           ` Andrew Hume
2022-08-09 18:26                             ` Clem Cole
2022-08-09 18:52                             ` Tom Teixeira
2022-08-09 21:25                             ` Rob Pike
2022-08-09 15:39                           ` Richard Salz
2022-08-09 13:56                         ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-09 16:45                         ` William H. Mitchell

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