From: John Labovitz <johnl@johnlabovitz.com>
To: "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] *roff history as told to GNU
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 21:38:06 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <BCAF0839-F686-4DE7-A113-FCC8C5B12EF2@johnlabovitz.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20220112180619.mxzojchd62vpwm2f@localhost.localdomain>
On Jan 12, 2022, at 13:06, G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been collecting a detailed narrative history not just of the *roff
> _programs_ but also of the development on the language in the roff(7)
> manual page.
Before RUNOFF was Peter Samson’s TJ-2 in 1963. It seems to have been the first program that incorporated the idea of input lines being interpreted as either control (with a prefix of a dot or other character) or text.
I dug up this history when I wrote ‘The Electric Typesetter: The Origins of Computing in Typography’ for the American Printing History Association’s journal _Printing History_ (issue 21, 2017). Sadly they don’t have online archives; my PDF of the article is here:
https://johnlabovitz.com/publications/The-electric-typesetter--The-origins-of-computing-in-typography.pdf
It’s about more than markup languages, but here’s the relevant bit:
> The earliest known text-formatting software, TJ-2, was created by MIT-trained computer scientist Peter Samson in 1963. Its design and architecture set the stage for text-formatting and typesetting programs for the next several decades.
>
> […]
>
> TJ-2 read lines of text as its input. Each line was collected and formatted to make justified paragraphs (of monospaced type). However, if a line started with a special control code (“overbar,” in the lingo of the PDP-1 system, its host computer), the program interpreted it as a command. There were only a few commands, including a primitive line-centering mode, some simplistic indentation, and a command that left a specific amount of vertical space for a figure (e.g., illustration) to be inserted later.
>
> […]
>
> Note that TJ-2 did not interface with a phototypesetter — or any typesetter. Its output was destined to be printed on what was essentially an automatic typewriter outfitted only with monospaced fonts. While this seems a limitation, perhaps it was a necessary constraint at the time. But the TJ-2 went on to inspire (directly or indirectly) a long branch of typesetting software beginning with RUNOFF (“A Right-Justifying Type Out Program”) in 1964, a program that used “control words scattered in the text [to] provide detailed control over the format” of text. RUNOFF substituted TJ-2’s proprietary “overbar” control code with a simple period, and expanded the set of commands to produce line and page breaks and folios (page numbers). Then, in a fairly confusing list of technical begats over a decade or so, RUNOFF (capitals) led to “runoff” (lowercase), then to “rf,” “roff,” “nroff,” and “troff” — all software programs that utilized the same basic idea as TJ-2.
Links from the footnotes:
TJ-2: http://www.dpbsmith.com/tj2.html
RUNOFF: http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/CC-244.html
Best,
—John
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-01-13 2:46 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 102+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-12-31 15:47 [TUHS] roff(7) Douglas McIlroy
2021-12-31 23:07 ` George Michaelson
2021-12-31 23:40 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-01 0:56 ` [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-01 3:15 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-10 19:00 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-10 20:21 ` Jon Forrest
2022-01-11 22:48 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-11 23:18 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 1:19 ` Dave Horsfall
2022-01-12 1:46 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:12 ` Bakul Shah
2022-01-12 15:49 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 16:22 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 0:06 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-12 1:48 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 0:29 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-12 1:53 ` Blake McBride
[not found] ` <E3CC4B8A-4E88-4339-A4D3-4ED26BA80620@gmail.com>
2022-01-12 0:44 ` Jon Forrest
2022-01-12 2:00 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:10 ` David Arnold
2022-01-12 2:26 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 19:54 ` John Cowan
2022-01-13 10:13 ` Thomas Paulsen
2022-01-13 20:00 ` John Cowan
2022-01-10 20:33 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-10 20:37 ` Richard Salz
2022-01-10 21:04 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-10 21:48 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-11 2:25 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2022-01-11 2:47 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-22 2:34 ` [TUHS] troff environments, traps, and diversions (was: TeX and groff) Branden Robinson
2022-01-22 16:02 ` Douglas McIlroy
2022-01-23 19:45 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-23 22:26 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 1:52 ` [TUHS] Recognizing TeX (was: TeX and groff (was: roff(7))) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 1:19 ` [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Mary Ann Horton
2022-01-12 2:03 ` Blake McBride
2022-01-12 2:10 ` Bakul Shah
2022-01-12 3:44 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 16:48 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2022-01-10 20:46 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2022-01-11 1:59 ` [TUHS] Demise of " Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-11 2:13 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2022-01-11 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 5:12 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-11 5:59 ` John Labovitz
2022-01-11 8:57 ` arnold
2022-01-11 20:15 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:22 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 20:26 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:36 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 20:41 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 20:49 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 21:03 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-11 8:50 ` arnold
2022-01-11 14:00 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 23:22 ` [TUHS] troff or groff? (was: Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7))) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 23:29 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-01-12 23:32 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-11 15:47 ` [TUHS] Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) Clem Cole
2022-01-11 16:55 ` Richard Salz
2022-01-11 18:49 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 19:20 ` John Cowan
2022-01-11 20:06 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 23:57 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-12 0:03 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-12 8:54 ` arnold
2022-01-12 15:17 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 16:33 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 18:06 ` [TUHS] *roff history as told to GNU G. Branden Robinson
2022-01-12 18:34 ` Dan Halbert
2022-01-12 22:48 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 23:27 ` Charles H. Sauer
2022-01-13 0:35 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 20:01 ` Dan Cross
2022-01-12 22:32 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-13 2:38 ` John Labovitz [this message]
2022-01-13 7:42 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2022-01-13 13:47 ` John Labovitz
2022-01-12 8:48 ` [TUHS] Demise of TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) arnold
2022-01-12 15:51 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-12 15:57 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-12 15:56 ` Clem Cole
2022-01-11 3:22 ` Adam Thornton
2022-01-12 0:32 ` Nemo Nusquam
2022-01-01 20:00 ` [TUHS] roff(7) [ and other related stuff ] Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 0:12 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 1:04 ` John Cowan
2022-01-02 1:20 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 1:47 ` Steve Nickolas
2022-01-02 2:12 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-02 3:56 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 1:48 ` Jon Steinhart
2022-01-02 3:04 ` John Cowan
2022-01-02 3:30 ` Warner Losh
2022-01-01 1:11 ` [TUHS] roff(7) Phil Budne
2022-01-01 1:17 ` Chris Torek
2022-01-01 3:06 ` Larry McVoy
2022-01-01 3:34 ` George Michaelson
2022-01-05 21:15 ` Tony Finch
2022-01-12 20:48 [TUHS] *roff history as told to GNU Noel Chiappa
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