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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

  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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