* [TUHS] Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff
@ 2024-01-10 18:50 tuhs
2024-01-10 22:04 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: tuhs @ 2024-01-10 18:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
No idea what COFF is, but in the early 1980s, two non-troff options on
the software side were -
1) TeX. From Donald Knuth, which means tau epsilon chi, pronounced tech
not tex. The urban legend was upon seeing an inital copy of one of his
books sometime in the 1970s, he yelled "blech!" and decided that if you
wanted your documents to look right, you need to do be able to it
yourself, and TeX rhymes with blech.
2) Scribe. From Brian Reid, of Carnegie-Mellon
See http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/scribe.pdf
-Brian
Clem Cole clemc at ccc.com wrtoe:
> Not really UNIX -- so I'm BCC TUHS and moving to COFF
>
> On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-10 18:50 [TUHS] Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff tuhs @ 2024-01-10 22:04 ` Diomidis Spinellis 2024-01-10 23:46 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-11 13:52 ` Sebastien F4GRX 2024-01-11 22:48 ` Dave Horsfall 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Diomidis Spinellis @ 2024-01-10 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Knuth opens his TeXbook, explaining TeX's origin and pronunciation. “English words like ‘technology’ stem from a Greek root beginning with the letters τεχ…; and this same Greek word means art as well as technology. Hence the name TeX, which is an uppercase form of τεχ.” He then indeed introduces blecchhh, but he doesn't connect it with the absence of quality. “Insiders pronounce the χ of TeX as a Greek chi, not as an ‘x’ so that TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh.” (I couldn't help noticing that in my 1989 edition of the book, ellipsis after τεχ appears to be set as three periods ‘...’ rather than a real ellipsis ‘…’. The (modern) Greek words for art and technology are τέχνη (techni) and τεχνολογία (technologia), respectively. Diomidis On 10-Jan-24 20:50, tuhs@cuzuco.com wrote: > No idea what COFF is, but in the early 1980s, two non-troff options on > the software side were - > > 1) TeX. From Donald Knuth, which means tau epsilon chi, pronounced tech > not tex. The urban legend was upon seeing an inital copy of one of his > books sometime in the 1970s, he yelled "blech!" and decided that if you > wanted your documents to look right, you need to do be able to it > yourself, and TeX rhymes with blech. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-10 22:04 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis @ 2024-01-10 23:46 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-11 2:20 ` Mychaela Falconia 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: segaloco via TUHS @ 2024-01-10 23:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Just to swing this back around to V7 docs, this auction has been on eBay for a little bit now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134767543042 After the link is an auction for the HRW V7 manuals, as well as a second Volume 1, the second edition of the Nemeth administration book, and a Fall '84 software catalog from AT&T. I might jump on this in a week or so if it is still up, although all I really want is the software catalog. That to say, if someone else does pick this up, all I'd ask is I would like to purchase the catalog then from you or otherwise see to it that it gets scanned. Otherwise if I do pick it up, expect a follow up posting offering up the V7 pair, I'd take the other Volume 1 (and Nemeth book) to that uni bookshelf I donated a V7 Volume 2 binder to. If you get this and disappear the software catalog into a memory hole, your mother is a hamster and father smells of elderberries. - Matt G. P.S. For those who don't go looking often but might be interested, these are currently listed on eBay in various places: - 1 Bell Laboratories UNIX Release 3.0 User's Manual. - 3 Western Electric UNIX Release 5.0 User's Manuals. - 1 Western Electric UNIX Release 5.0 Error Message Manual. - Lots of picture-less auctions (you're selling books, pictures are the least you can do...) of allegedly parts of the HRW UNIX SVR2 5 Volume set. These are small form with metallic alphabet blocks otherwise resembling the motif on the V7 manuals cover. Distinct from the black and red binders distributed closer to actual machine purchases. - The usual gaggle of SVR3 and SVR4 manuals, there's always a rotation of them up so not going to point out specifics. The Release 5.0 Error Message Manual is particularly interesting in that the cover looks virtually identical to the usual Release 5.0/System V motif but the text says "UNIX Operating System" instead of just "UNIX System" like the Release 5.0 and System V copies I have. Most literature just says "UNIX System" so I suspect the "Operating" text is on earlier runs of the covers. Just speculation though, can't say for certain. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-10 23:46 ` segaloco via TUHS @ 2024-01-11 2:20 ` Mychaela Falconia 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-11 2:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, segaloco Hi Matt, > Just to swing this back around to V7 docs, this auction has been on eBay > for a little bit now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134767543042 I just snarfed it. I am only interested in the V7 book pair; the other 3 books (extra vol1, the Nemeth book and the catalog you are most interested in) will be going to you, my dear. Please send me your mailing/shipping address off-list. > That to say, if someone else does pick this up, all I'd ask is I would like > to purchase the catalog then from you or otherwise see to it that it gets > scanned. I have neither the setup nor the time to do any scanning, so I'll just send you the physical book. > If you get this and disappear the software catalog into a memory hole, > your mother is a hamster and father smells of elderberries. I hereby swear before my Goddesses that I shall not disappear that catalog; if it arrives in my hands from the ebay seller, I shall do everything in my power to get it to you, dear brother. Mychaela N. Falconia, HPS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-10 18:50 [TUHS] Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff tuhs 2024-01-10 22:04 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis @ 2024-01-11 13:52 ` Sebastien F4GRX 2024-01-11 22:48 ` Dave Horsfall 2 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Sebastien F4GRX @ 2024-01-11 13:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Hi, Very interesting trivia, I didnt know, thanks! Funnily, this scribe document has a joke about hyp- henation. Sebastien Le 10/01/2024 à 19:50, tuhs@cuzuco.com a écrit : > No idea what COFF is, but in the early 1980s, two non-troff options on > the software side were - > > 1) TeX. From Donald Knuth, which means tau epsilon chi, pronounced tech > not tex. The urban legend was upon seeing an inital copy of one of his > books sometime in the 1970s, he yelled "blech!" and decided that if you > wanted your documents to look right, you need to do be able to it > yourself, and TeX rhymes with blech. > > 2) Scribe. From Brian Reid, of Carnegie-Mellon > See http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/scribe.pdf > > -Brian > > Clem Cole clemc at ccc.com wrtoe: >> Not really UNIX -- so I'm BCC TUHS and moving to COFF >> >> On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 12:19b /PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote: >> >>> On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't exist, and >>> one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to actually using the >>> thing? Was there some sort of datasheet the vendor supplied that the end >>> user would have to program a driver around, or was there any sort of >>> example code or other materials provided to give folks a leg up on using >>> their new, expensive instrument? Did they have any "packaged bundles" for >>> users of prominent systems such as 360/370 OSs or say one of the DEC OSs? >>> >> Basically, the phototypesetter part was turnkey with a built-in >> minicomputer with a paper tape unit, later a micro and a floppy disk as a >> cost reduction. The preparation for the typesetter was often done >> independently, but often the vendor offered some system to prepare the PPT >> or Floppy. Different typesetter vendors targeted different parts of the >> market, from small local independent newspapers (such as the one my sister >> and her husband owned and ran in North Andover MA for many years), to >> systems that Globe or the Times might. Similarly, books and magazines >> might have different systems (IIRC the APS-5 was originally targeted for >> large book publishers). This was all referred to as the 'pre-press' >> industry and there were lots of players in different parts. >> >> Large firms that produced documentation, such as DEC, AT&T *et al*., and >> even some universities, might own their own gear, or they might send it out >> to be set. >> >> The software varied greatly, depending on the target customer. For >> instance, by the early 80s, the Boston Globe's input system was still >> terrible - even though the computers had gotten better. I had a couple of >> friends working there, and they used to b*tch about it. But big newspapers >> (and I expect many other large publishers) were often heavy union shops on >> the back end (layout and presses), so the editors just wanted to set strips >> of "column wide" text as the layout was manual. I've forgotten the name of >> the vendor of the typesetter they used, but it was one of the larger firms >> -- IIRC, it had a DG Nova in it. My sister used CompuGraphic Gear, which >> was based on 8085's. She had two custom editing stations and the >> typesetter itself (it sucked). The whole system was under $35K in >> late-1970s money - but targeted to small newspapers like hers. In the >> mid-1908s, I got her a Masscomp at a reduced price and put 6 Wyse-75 >> terminals on it, so she could have her folks edit their stories with vi, >> run spell, and some of the other UNIX tools. I then reverse-engineered the >> floppy enough to split out the format she wanted for her stories -- she >> used a manual layout scheme. She still has to use the custom stuff for >> headlines and some other parts, but it was a load faster and more parallel >> (for instance, we wrote an awk script to generate the School Lunch menus, >> which they published each week). >> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-10 18:50 [TUHS] Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff tuhs 2024-01-10 22:04 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis 2024-01-11 13:52 ` Sebastien F4GRX @ 2024-01-11 22:48 ` Dave Horsfall 2024-01-11 23:47 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Dave Horsfall @ 2024-01-11 22:48 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Wed, 10 Jan 2024, tuhs@cuzuco.com wrote: > No idea what COFF is, but in the early 1980s, two non-troff options on > the software side were - COFF (Computer Old Farts Followers) is the sister list to this one; it was set up to take the off-topic posts from TUHS (I suggested the name to Warren). Subscribe in the usual way... -- Dave ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-11 22:48 ` Dave Horsfall @ 2024-01-11 23:47 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey 2024-01-11 23:59 ` [TUHS] Re: Subscribing to TUHS and COFF Warren Toomey via TUHS 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2024-01-11 23:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Dave Horsfall; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 850 bytes --] On Friday, 12 January 2024 at 9:48:54 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jan 2024, tuhs@cuzuco.com wrote: > >> No idea what COFF is, but in the early 1980s, two non-troff options on >> the software side were - > > COFF (Computer Old Farts Followers) is the sister list to this one; it was > set up to take the off-topic posts from TUHS (I suggested the name to > Warren). > > Subscribe in the usual way... In fact, no. I replied yesterday and first checked the details. To subscribe, you need to ask Warren personally. That's not the case for TUHS. Warren, why the difference? Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Subscribing to TUHS and COFF 2024-01-11 23:47 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2024-01-11 23:59 ` Warren Toomey via TUHS 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Warren Toomey via TUHS @ 2024-01-11 23:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 10:47:24AM +1100, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > To subscribe, you need to ask Warren personally. > That's not the case for TUHS. Warren, why the difference? For both COFF and TUHS you have to e-mail me personally to get on the list. I've disabled the on-line subscription mechanism. Cheers, Warren ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? @ 2024-01-08 0:20 Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-07 21:59 ` [TUHS] My own version of troff Mychaela Falconia 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-08 0:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, tuhs Hi Brian, > 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. Thank you for this very detailed account! It certainly helps clear the air, and helps people like me (who weren't there at the time) understand this history a little better. > 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. I am doing something similar with 4.3BSD manuals. When I started on this quest in 2004, I didn't have any reference for how the original looked, I was flying blind, and the draft I produced that year was so poor (by my own judgment) that I never took it further. In 2010 I was able to score a real paper copy (relic) of 4.3BSD Usenix print, I made some improvements to my troff, but then I had to put it down and switch to other projects. I picked it up again in 2012, got URM and PRM books done (these are easy, man pages only, 4.3BSD equiv of Vol1), was working on USD book (first big book of supplementary docs, has all docs for troff suite), but then again I got switched to a different (and very big) project, the one in my current domain name. I am revisiting it now, and I was _*very*_ pleased when I found published scans on archive.org, by Erica Fischer, of all Usenix books from *both* 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD sets, uploaded in 2017. Now I don't have to feel guilty about "hoarding" my treasured physical copy of the original Usenix 4.3BSD print! I still desire to finish my PostScript reprint of all 6 4.3BSD books: the historical ones I got are very fragile, the plastic binding combs already got several broken teeth, and given that I like to use 4.3BSD "for real", I would really love to have physical reference books on my bookshelf that aren't fragile and can take abuse - hence the desire for a new physical print. Plus the feel-good of publishing PostScript files, one perfectly DSC-conforming PS file for each book, that anyone in the community can do with as they please, plus full recipes for recreating them... If someone desires a more perfectionist PostScript reprint of the V7 manual, let's revisit this discussion in another few weeks when I put out my current reprints of 4.3BSD URM, USD and PRM - it will be easier to refer to those when discussing possible ideas for V7. > 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). You did the right thing: the version you used certainly feels much more "right" than anything from GNU. > 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). So it is a different ditroff-to-PS chain than psdit from Adobe Transcript? I am not too familiar with the latter, as I ended up writing my own troff (derived from V7 version, just published) that emits PS directly, but it is my understanding that Back In The Day most people used psdit for this type of workflow. > 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. Ouch, until you pointed it out in this ML post, I hadn't even noticed that the C Reference Manual doc is "wrong" in your PDF version! But here comes the really important question: if you once had a PDF reprint with the "right" version of this doc, where did you get the troff source for it? This is the source that was actually censored from the V7 tape: https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/doc/cman I don't have this problem for my 4.3BSD reprint: the source for 4.3BSD version of this doc is included on the tape; the corresponding SCCS log begins with "document received from AT&T", checked in on 86/05/14, and then revised by BSD people into what they wanted printed in their version of the manual. But if someone wishes to do a *proper* reprint of the V7 manual (or 4.2BSD, where this doc and many others were literally unchanged duplications from V7 master at the plate level), we need the troff source for the V7 version of this doc. If this source is totally lost, we as in community can probably do an OCR from a surviving scan (for example, the one in 4.2BSD PSD book) and then painstakingly produce a new troff source that would format into an exact replica - but if there is a leaked copy of the original source somewhere, it would certainly make our job way easier. > 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. Aside from the unresolved issue of "cman" document, we as in community can produce an even better work if we so wish. I am deferring a more detailed discussion until I put out my 4.3BSD PS reprint, so I can point to it as a reference for how I like to do things, and maybe by then we'll have some clarity on what happened to V7 "cman" troff source. M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] My own version of troff @ 2024-01-07 21:59 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-08 3:24 ` [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / " G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-07 21:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Hello fellow lovers of old UNIX, After almost 20 y of intermittent development (started in the fall of 2004), I just made the first official release of my version of troff: https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.Z https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.gz (The .Z is the native format; the .gz is for greater accessibility.) The README file inside the tarball gives the full story, but basically it is my own derivative from classic V7 troff (not derived from ditroff, and certainly not groff) that runs under 4.3BSD and emits PostScript. Only PS output is supported, no non-PS targets of ditroff. I started it in 2004, but I still use it to this day (on a real MicroVAX running my "organically grown" 4.3BSD variant) to write various TPS reports and technical manuals etc, for my other projects that don't have much of anything to do with Ancient UNIX. For anyone who loves intricacies of troff and/or PostScript, you might find the source code quite interesting to study. :) Some Time Soon I am hoping to put out my PostScript reprint of the first 3 books of the 4.3BSD manual set (namely, URM, USD and PRM books) made with this troff. The actual book reformatting job is already done (for these 3 books, not for the other 3 yet), but I need to write new colophons to be appended (with pstmerge, a tool from my troff suite) at the end of each book. (The colophons I wrote for URM and PRM back in 2012 are in need of corrections and updates, and I didn't have the USD book done in 2012.) I will also be responding to BSW's detailed account of V7 PDF reprint in the other thread shortly - but I wanted to get this troff release out first, so I won't be in a position of saying "please look at my creation" when that creation is not publicly accessible. M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-07 21:59 ` [TUHS] My own version of troff Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-08 3:24 ` G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-08 5:10 ` Mychaela Falconia 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-08 3:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs; +Cc: groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5563 bytes --] At 2024-01-07T16:20:35-0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote: > > 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). > > You did the right thing: the version you used certainly feels much > more "right" than anything from GNU. This sort of broad, nonspecific, reflexive derogation of groff (or GNU generally) is unproductive and frequently indicative of ignorance. Admittedly, groff does not attempt pixel-perfect reproduction of classic Unix documentation, particularly not C/A/T output. There's a good reason for that, and one that will challenge your efforts as well, if you draw your scope as far back as the C/A/T. (If your horizon is 4.3BSD documents rendered as PostScript, you may be in luck.) The problem is fonts. The C/A/T's fonts did not even exist in the digital domain. They were produced from photographic plates. Their reproduction is consequently something of a pickle. The good news is that the Adobe PostScript Times faces and their URW clone are "pretty close" equivalents. Close enough that I was able to reproduce Kernighan & Cherry's "Typesetting Mathematics User's Guide -- Second Edition" (a.k.a. "the eqn manual") with fairly high fidelity. https://github.com/g-branden-robinson/retypesetting-mathematics This work required (1) some bug fixes to the GNU ms macros, now applied; and (2) fine-tuning of the line length and page offset to compensate for the different metrics of Adobe/URW Times versus the C/A/T's. There is a third problem, whose resolution is in progress, when producing PDF output from this document; slanted Greek symbols are present but "not quite right". This is because unlike PostScript, PDF font repertoires generally don't provide a "slanted symbol" face. gropdf author Deri James has committed some work to groff's Git repository synthesizing such a face. We expect it in groff 1.24. But if you are going for pixel-perfect reproduction of documents that used fonts you don't have, you're going to need to recreate the fonts somehow--perfectly (at least for the glyphs that a given document uses). One of the reasons Knuth was able to be so meticulously perfectionistic with TeX and avoid regressions at the pixel placement level is because he developed his own fonts along with just about everything else. AT&T troff did not make that choice. Like AT&T troff, groff attempts to be a practical typesetting system. One way I measure its success is by the fact that practiced AT&T troff users like Brian Kernighan[1] and Doug McIlroy[2] use it for the composition of new works, and speak of it with approval. (Doug reports bugs, some of which we manage to address.) groff is not, primarily, a vehicle for nostalgia trips. > After almost 20 y of intermittent development (started in the fall of > 2004), I just made the first official release of my version of troff: > > https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.Z > https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.gz But there is room in the world for such things, particularly if they are Free Software. I was unable to determine that qjtroff is, except for a few portions retaining UC Regents' copyright notices from the 1980s,[3] and if these contain further original work by you (or others), then the lack of a clear copyright notice and licensing information renders the project "all rights reserved", meaning among other things that people cannot redistribute to others, let alone make modifications--say, to add the documentation that is not present. README: > Documentation: in 2012 I started writing a proper manual, but ran out > of time (had to switch to other projects). Because it can easily be > another year or two or ... before I can get back to that documentation > and finish it, I decided to release this software as-is, without docs. > Too many projects, too little time... In any event, the groff mailing list is the de facto water cooler for all *roff developers, and I invite you to join it to stay abreast of developments. Discussion of non-groff *roffs is rare but welcomed. Since there is no standard for *roff, it is the most useful forum for discussion of, for instance, unspecified details of formatter or macro package behavior. (Unfortunately, sometimes people ask for help with Heirloom Doctools troff and receive solutions that are applicable only to groff; Heirloom's own community seems sadly too shy, or perhaps too attenuated, to share its expertise.) Regards, Branden [1] https://technicallywewrite.com/2023/06/01/groff [2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2023-07/msg00062.html [3] There were also Adobe copyright notices in AFM files, which are not necessarily a problem since font _metrics_ are not copyrightable[4] and of course several false positives arising from the existence of "copyright" as a named glyph in fonts. [4] At least not in the United States, and perhaps not in many countries of the world that are signatories to the various trade treaties (URAA-GATT, TRIPS, and so forth) through which WIPO has exported U.S. copyright law to a nearly global scope. IANAL. TINLA. [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-08 3:24 ` [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / " G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-08 5:10 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-08 7:11 ` G. Branden Robinson [not found] ` <CAGcdajdc5GfTOeP_Vw_AC0E6BdnrBLape1+GEd2JGDCg4n31eQ@mail.gmail.com> 0 siblings, 2 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-08 5:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, g.branden.robinson; +Cc: groff G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: > This sort of broad, nonspecific, reflexive derogation of groff (or GNU > generally) is unproductive and frequently indicative of ignorance. I don't have enough spoons to engage in political fights any more, so I'll just focus on technical aspects. > The C/A/T's fonts did not even exist in the digital domain. They were > produced from photographic plates. Their reproduction is consequently > something of a pickle. I am very keenly aware of this fact! > But if you are going for pixel-perfect reproduction of documents that > used fonts you don't have, you're going to need to recreate the fonts > somehow--perfectly (at least for the glyphs that a given document uses). The problem you are describing is one which I am *not* actively working on presently. I am _contemplating_ this problem, but not actively working on it. In my current stage of 4.3BSD document set reprinting, I am willing to accept that hyphenations, line breaks and page breaks will be different from the original because of slightly different font metrics, and accept the use of only fi and fl ligatures (in running text, outside of explicit demonstrations) because Adobe's version dropped ff, ffi and ffl. (In places where original troff docs explicitly demonstrate the use of all 5 ligatures, I have a hack that pulls the missing ligs from a different, not-really-matching font.) I am willing to accept this imperfection because it is fundamentally no different from what UCB/Usenix themselves did in 1986: they took Bell Labs docs that were originally written for CAT and troffed them on their APS-5 ditroff setup - but those two typesetters also had slight diffs in their font metrics, causing line and page breaks to move around! OTOH I am very willing to entertain, as an intellectual exercise, what would it take to produce a new font set that would *truly* replicate the CAT font set at Bell Labs. The spacing widths of the original fonts (the key determinant of where breaks will land) are known, right here: https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/src/cmd/troff/tab3.c Back in 2004 in one afternoon I threw together a quick-hack program that takes the output of original troff (CAT binary codes) and prints it in PostScript, using standard Adobe fonts. The character positioning is that of original troff, but because the actual font characters don't perfectly match these metrics, the result is not pretty - but the non-pretty result does show *exactly* where every line and page break lands per original intent! So what would it take to do such a re-creation properly? My feeling is that the task would require hiring a professional typeface designer to produce a modified version of Times font family: modify the fonts to produce good visual results (change actual characters as needed) to fit the prescribed, unchangeable metrics as in spacing widths. And design all 5 f-ligatures while at it. I have no slightest idea how much it would cost to hire a professional typeface designer to do what I just described, hence I have no idea whether or not it is something that the hobbyist community could potentially afford, even collectively. But it is an interesting idea to ponder nonetheless - which is where I leave it for now. > There is a third problem, whose resolution is in progress, when > producing PDF output from this document; slanted Greek symbols are > present but "not quite right". This is because unlike PostScript, PDF > font repertoires generally don't provide a "slanted symbol" face. Can you please elaborate? I personally hate PDF with a passion, but I concede that in order to make my documents readable by people other than me, I have to rcp my .ps file from the 4.3BSD machine to a semi-modern-ish (Slackware) Linux box and run ps2pdf on the file. But what "slanted symbol" font are you talking about that exists in PostScript but not in PDF? The only PostScript fonts whose existence I take as a given (as opposed to downloading the font explicitly) are the standard 14: 4 Times family fonts, 4 Helvetica family fonts, 4 Courier family fonts, Symbol and ZapfDingbats. Which of these 14 is missing in PDF, and how does "standard" ps2pdf (Ghostscript) handle it? > Like AT&T troff, groff attempts to be a practical typesetting system. I wrote *my* version of troff with exact same goals, and I've been using it as my personal everyday TPS report formatter for the past 20 y. It's just that for deeply personal reasons which I would rather not go into on this list, I chose to develop my own tool instead of using one that bears GNU branding. I also wanted my troff to run under 4.3BSD, using only K&R C, which I reason would probably be impossible with groff. (I recall reading somewhere that groff is written in C++ - so it is completely out of consideration for something that needs to run under 4.3BSD.) > But there is room in the world for such things, particularly if they are > Free Software. I was unable to determine that qjtroff is, except for a > few portions retaining UC Regents' copyright notices from the 1980s,[3] My software is written BY a pirate (me) FOR other pirates. If you are not a pirate, my sw is not for you. M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-08 5:10 ` Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-08 7:11 ` G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-09 9:38 ` Mychaela Falconia [not found] ` <CAGcdajdc5GfTOeP_Vw_AC0E6BdnrBLape1+GEd2JGDCg4n31eQ@mail.gmail.com> 1 sibling, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-08 7:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 12433 bytes --] At 2024-01-07T21:10:38-0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote: > G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: > > > This sort of broad, nonspecific, reflexive derogation of groff (or > > GNU generally) is unproductive and frequently indicative of > > ignorance. > > I don't have enough spoons to engage in political fights any more, so > I'll just focus on technical aspects. That may be a wise choice. A good supplement would be, when expressing a negative opinion of GNU or any software project to which people contribute their volunteer labor, to briefly state your grounds for not using it. "I just can't go along with the copyleft thing" or "I refuse to use anything written in C++" might or might not strike people as rational, but such frankness places the responsibility for starting an argument squarely on _their_ shoulders. Any issues people have with groff's implementation quality should be submitted to its bug tracker. (One can do so anonymously, or create an account to be emailed when subsequent activity happens.) There are plenty of defects demanding repair and features needing implementation. I wish there were fewer. I do what I can. https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=groff > > But if you are going for pixel-perfect reproduction of documents > > that used fonts you don't have, you're going to need to recreate the > > fonts somehow--perfectly (at least for the glyphs that a given > > document uses). > > The problem you are describing is one which I am *not* actively > working on presently. I am _contemplating_ this problem, but not > actively working on it. In my current stage of 4.3BSD document set > reprinting, I am willing to accept that hyphenations, line breaks and > page breaks will be different from the original because of slightly > different font metrics, and accept the use of only fi and fl ligatures > (in running text, outside of explicit demonstrations) because Adobe's > version dropped ff, ffi and ffl. (In places where original troff docs > explicitly demonstrate the use of all 5 ligatures, I have a hack that > pulls the missing ligs from a different, not-really-matching font.) > > I am willing to accept this imperfection because it is fundamentally > no different from what UCB/Usenix themselves did in 1986: they took > Bell Labs docs that were originally written for CAT and troffed them > on their APS-5 ditroff setup - but those two typesetters also had > slight diffs in their font metrics, causing line and page breaks to > move around! Right. I think this is a reasonable place to erect a threshold of "fidelity" in document rendering, for two reasons: (1) when you don't have control over the fonts in use, it's likely the best you can do anyway, and (2) as a document author you might want to leave yourself room to change your mind about the typeface you use, particularly for running text (which will have the greatest impact on the locations of line and page breaks for most documents). That I was able to get the breaks in "Typesetting Mathematics" almost all the same as the published version even though the Times I used was certainly not the C/A/T's was a due to a combination of (a) good fortune and (b) the power of binary search when selecting values for the LL and PO registers. > OTOH I am very willing to entertain, as an intellectual exercise, what > would it take to produce a new font set that would *truly* replicate > the CAT font set at Bell Labs. The spacing widths of the original > fonts (the key determinant of where breaks will land) are known, right > here: > > https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/src/cmd/troff/tab3.c Right. Nowadays we call these (and other measurements besides width) the "font metrics". > Back in 2004 in one afternoon I threw together a quick-hack program > that takes the output of original troff (CAT binary codes) and prints > it in PostScript, using standard Adobe fonts. The character > positioning is that of original troff, but because the actual font > characters don't perfectly match these metrics, the result is not > pretty - but the non-pretty result does show *exactly* where every > line and page break lands per original intent! Nice! A tool I'd like to get added to groff someday is a modern "cat2dit". It's come up on these mailing lists before; apparently Adobe had a proprietary one back in the 1980s, and, as I recall, polymath wizard Henry Spencer wrote one but it's long since become a relic. John Gardner wrote yet another but it's in JavaScript so not maximally convenient for a Unix command line grognard. But best of all would be a "cat2dit" in Seventh Edition Unix-compatible C, because that would be super convenient for running on a PDP-11 under SIMH using Ossanna troff. The output would be easy to export because the device-independent troff output format is plain text (and not too strict about whitespace), and SIMH of course runs in a terminal window so it's easy to copy and paste. This would make it much easier to use Ossanna troff as a regression test bed for groff (or other modern formatters). > So what would it take to do such a re-creation properly? My feeling > is that the task would require hiring a professional typeface designer > to produce a modified version of Times font family: modify the fonts > to produce good visual results (change actual characters as needed) to > fit the prescribed, unchangeable metrics as in spacing widths. And > design all 5 f-ligatures while at it. Another approach would be to obtain the C/A/T font plates and describe them numerically. Since the only means of scaling was via an optical lens (from 6 to 36 points), we can conclude that they weren't "hinted" as digital fonts often are. Since those plates are presumably nearly all in landfills these days I suppose the same could be accomplished with sufficiently high-resolution scans of the copy of CSTR #54 in the Seventh Edition Unix manual (because it depicts all possibly glyphs). And of course if a person wants a gratuitous thing to put on their résumé/CV, you could obtain a large number of Times roman faces from a variety of foundries, render a huge volume of text using them in every possible combination and at a large number of sizes, and then use those renderings to train an LLM to generate an "archetypal" Times face for rendering C/A/T-produced documents. You then unleash it on the world and wait for the lawsuits to roll in, which should get a person enough notoriety to land a day job at someplace where the buzzword "AI" excites hard-charging middle managers. > I have no slightest idea how much it would cost to hire a professional > typeface designer to do what I just described, hence I have no idea > whether or not it is something that the hobbyist community could > potentially afford, even collectively. But it is an interesting idea > to ponder nonetheless - which is where I leave it for now. Hobbyist font designers do exist. Some may lurk on one or both of these lists. I would ask them if it's more or less a solved problem already. > > There is a third problem, whose resolution is in progress, when > > producing PDF output from this document; slanted Greek symbols are > > present but "not quite right". This is because unlike PostScript, > > PDF font repertoires generally don't provide a "slanted symbol" > > face. > > Can you please elaborate? I personally hate PDF with a passion, but I > concede that in order to make my documents readable by people other > than me, I have to rcp my .ps file from the 4.3BSD machine to a > semi-modern-ish (Slackware) Linux box and run ps2pdf on the file. Doug McIlroy still does this.[1] > But what "slanted symbol" font are you talking about that exists in > PostScript but not in PDF? The only PostScript fonts whose existence > I take as a given (as opposed to downloading the font explicitly) are > the standard 14: 4 Times family fonts, 4 Helvetica family fonts, 4 > Courier family fonts, Symbol and ZapfDingbats. Which of these 14 is > missing in PDF, and how does "standard" ps2pdf (Ghostscript) handle > it? Sorry, I elided too much from my response on this point. I should not have implied that "slanted symbol" is a standard PostScript font; it is not, per my copy of the _PostScript Language Reference Manual_ (3e) [see Appendix E]. "Slanted symbol", a.k.a. "SS", is a supplemental face in groff...of old provenance--it goes back to groff 1.06 (September 1992) at least. It exists to solve a problem that can be observed when you compare two documents already referenced above. 1. Adobe's _PostScript Language Reference Manual_, p. 794. Table E.13, "Symbol Encoding Vector" 2. CSTR #54 "Nroff/Troff User's Manual" (1976), p. 226*. Table I, "Font Style Examples" * using the page numbering in the HRW reprint of Volume 2 recently discussed on TUHS You will quickly observe that the C/A/T's "Special Mathematical Font", bearing the pellucid name "S" in the Ossanna/Thompson naming convention popular at Bell Labs, renders all its lowercase Greek letters in italic form. PostScript's Symbol font does not. A problem for any post-C/A/T typesetting is how to get upright versions of lowercase Greek letters. AT&T troff was engineered around the assumption that the lowercase Greek letters typically used for mathematical and scientific typesetting are slanted/italic rather than upright. This assumption is baked into the semantics of special character names *a, *b, *g, and so forth. (Except when using nroff, of course, where one "naturally" expects upright glyphs instead, just like the good old Greek box on the Teletype Model 37.) The eqn preprocessor furthermore--and consequently--assumes it doesn't need to do anything special for these special characters to show up in italics (making its rendering to terminals inconsistent with troff output). If you couldn't guess, I plan to change this in groff. It won't break eqn documents because what I "take away" in the semantics of the special characters (an implied font style, which doesn't belong there), I will "put back" via updated eqn character definitions, so people who say sin ( 2 theta ) ~ = ~ 2 ~ sin theta cos theta will continue to get what they expect. eqn users who bust down to *roff special characters to get Greek will, unfortunately, need to adapt. But GNU eqn has features to support doing so with minimal pain.[2] I have read that modern standards of mathematical typography mandate that constants, like every non-mathematician's favorite, π, should be set upright, not italicized as people of my generation (and I guess older ones) are accustomed to seeing it. The idea is that only _variables_ get italics. But I cannot speak further to this point, as it's well out of my wheelhouse. If it's true, I hope the increased flexibility I plan for groff and its eqn will make life easier for those who typeset math. https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?64231 https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?64232 gropdf(1) has not to date supported a slanted symbol font. But it needs to for the reasons explored on the groff list last June in a lengthy thread, the relevant portion of which starts here. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2023-06/msg00088.html > I also wanted my troff to run under 4.3BSD, using only K&R C, which I > reason would probably be impossible with groff. (I recall reading > somewhere that groff is written in C++ - so it is completely out of > consideration for something that needs to run under 4.3BSD.) Probably, unless someone wants to resurrect cfront... C is not my favorite programming language, and C++ even less so. In a better universe, by my lights, James Clark would have written groff in Ada. I acknowledge that a lot of people would characterize such a universe as a variety of Hell. > My software is written BY a pirate (me) FOR other pirates. If you are > not a pirate, my sw is not for you. Arrrrrr. I believe I take your meaning. Piracy is an occupational hazard of rentierism. Regards, Branden [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2023-08/msg00028.html [2] See eqn(1), subsection "Spacing and typeface". [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-08 7:11 ` G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-09 9:38 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-09 16:27 ` Al Kossow 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-09 9:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, groff, g.branden.robinson G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: > Right. Nowadays we call these (and other measurements besides width) > the "font metrics". Not just "nowadays": font metrics has always been the standard term, including original troff days. But I specifically said "spacing widths" because it is the _only_ metric that matters for the purpose of pleasing otroff and keeping all line and page breaks where they were originally. All other metrics matter not in the "pleasing otroff" category, but in the category of "visual beauty" or "recreating exact appearance", which would be next-level-up from simply satisfying otroff. > You will quickly observe that the C/A/T's "Special Mathematical Font", > bearing the pellucid name "S" in the Ossanna/Thompson naming convention > popular at Bell Labs, renders all its lowercase Greek letters in italic > form. PostScript's Symbol font does not. Yes, this difference exists. However, let me point out that *both* official troff-to-PS toolchains that existed in traditional UNIX world (Adobe TranScript is one and Bell Labs DWB is the other) took the path of accepting non-slanted Greek letters as-is from Symbol. Seeing that Bell Labs themselves deemed this change as acceptable tells me that the slanted nature of lowercase Greek letters in original typesetter fonts (C/A/T, APS-5) was not considered an absolutely essential feature of these characters that MUST be preserved in every new troff implementation. > "Slanted symbol", a.k.a. "SS", is a supplemental face in groff...of old > provenance--it goes back to groff 1.06 (September 1992) at least. OK, fair enough: your lineage made a different choice in this regard. But seeing that both Adobe TranScript and Bell Labs' own later troff took the same approach as I took in my troff (using Symbol as-is), I don't feel guilty about not doing the same SS manipulation you do in groff. There is also a historical/timeline factor for me: A.D. 2010 was the first time I laid my eyes on the output of a traditional pre-PostScript troff typesetter (that was when I scored a physical copy of 4.3BSD books), and by that point I had been using my own troff for 6 y since 2004. Yes, I wrote it blindly at first: because of my younger age, I didn't get to live through the era of traditional typesetters, I totally missed it, but I needed a working troff under my then-production OS (4.3BSD) - so what was I supposed to do?... M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 9:38 ` Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-09 16:27 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 16:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Tracing the origins of the typefaces used on the GSI/Wang typesetter is a fun rathole going back to Singer Graphic Systems and to Singer-Friden (ie Flexowriter) before that ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 16:27 ` Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: segaloco via TUHS @ 2024-01-09 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Tuesday, January 9th, 2024 at 8:27 AM, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote: > Tracing the origins of the typefaces used on the GSI/Wang typesetter is a fun rathole > going back to Singer Graphic Systems and to Singer-Friden (ie Flexowriter) before that > On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't exist, and one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to actually using the thing? Was there some sort of datasheet the vendor supplied that the end user would have to program a driver around, or was there any sort of example code or other materials provided to give folks a leg up on using their new, expensive instrument? Did they have any "packaged bundles" for users of prominent systems such as 360/370 OSs or say one of the DEC OSs? Similarly, were any vendor-or-locally-provided solutions used prior to the maturation of troff to the point it was used for the Fourth Edition manual typesetting? Or was the C/A/T from day one of "production" use being driven pretty much exclusively by troff? I admit my knowledge of this stuff is fuzzy, such as whether troff+C/A/T was the plan from the outset of acquiring the C/A/T or if there was ever a time where folks at research may have been cooking on a different approach to using the thing. - Matt G. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS @ 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne 2024-01-09 18:30 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS 2024-01-09 20:29 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 22:07 ` Clem Cole 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Phil Budne @ 2024-01-09 18:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, segaloco Matt G wrote: > On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't > exist, and one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to > actually using the thing? ... or say one of the DEC OSs? Off-topic for this list, BUT: At DEC/LCG (Large (36-bit) Computer Group) in the 80's when we got a DEC LN01 (Xerox 2700 engine?) someone adapted an old typesetter version of RUNOFF to drive it. I heard tell that there was a dusty C/A/T in one of the labs. Mentions of Typeset-8, Typeset-10, and Typeset-11: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/typeset-10/Typeset-10_Product_Proposal_197310.pdf Typeset-8: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp8/typeset8/ https://www.hewlettpackardhistory.com/item/at-the-turn-of-a-key/ Digital Equipment Corporation’s TYPESET-8 pioneered the “turnkey” computer system, where a system was custom designed for a specific application and was ready to perform that application at the press of a button (or the turn of a key). The TYPESET-8 hardware and software package originally sold with the classic PDP-8 as its CPU and functioned as a computerized typesetting system. Digital Equipment Corporation joined Hewlett-Packard in 2002. Typeset-11: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/typeset-11/ TMS-11 is pretty sophisticated: RSX-11D with options a real disk (RP03) or RK05, and a swap device (RF11/RS11), OCR input, VT20 (VT05 + 11/05-- first I've heard of it) but still with up to four paper tape readers/punches. The diagram at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/typeset-11/EK-T11SY-OP-001_TMS-11_System_Managers_and_Usrs_Guide_Feb1975.pdf shows direct hardware connection to a "photocomp machine", or via punched tape. But, I haven't spotted any mention of specific typesetter hardware. https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/DEC_VT20 says: The DEC VT20 terminal is a variant of the DEC VT05 terminal with special facilities for typesetting. The VT20/B is another variant with a different enclosure. Two VT20/B terminals were connected to single PDP-11/05 (a variant of the 11/10) which was connected via RS232 to a host system, either a larger PDP-11 or a DECsystem-10, running Typeset-11 or Typeset-10. Newspapers using Typeset-10 were The Kansas City Star, the Chicago Tribune, and the London, Ontario, Free Press. The PDP-11/05 was booted by toggling in the bootstrap using the switches on the front of the machine, then downloading the abs loader and actual software through the RS232 interface from the host. The PDP-11/05 buffered text (news stories) downloaded from the host and allowed editing on the VT20. On Typeset-11 it was page oriented, a page would be downloaded, edited, then uploaded back to the host. On Typeset-10 the text was downloaded, but an associated memory system mirrored changes made on the text in the -11 to a copy on the -10. When the "save" button was pressed, the text was copied from associative memory into the actual text file on the DECsystem-10. This allowed for virtual scrolling through large files without having to save and load pages. The VT20s were eventually replaced by the VT72s, which featured a micro PDP-11 internally, with twice the memory of the old PDP-11/05s that controlled the VT20s. Interestingly enough, Digital no longer supported the associative memory version of the editing software, requiring page level editing. The Kansas City Star rewrote the PDP-11 software for the VT20s to run on the VT72, allowing for further virtual scrolling of large files, and making saving edits faster. The VT72 was replaced by the VT172, virtually the same terminal but in a VT100 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne @ 2024-01-09 18:30 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Grant Taylor via TUHS @ 2024-01-09 18:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 1/9/24 12:05 PM, Phil Budne wrote: > Two VT20/B terminals were connected to single PDP-11/05 (a variant > of the 11/10) which was connected via RS232 to a host system, > either a larger PDP-11 or a DECsystem-10, running Typeset-11 or > Typeset-10. Does that mean that the PDP-11/05 was functioning similarly to -- what I believe is called -- a terminal controller in IBM SNA parlance? The booting (2nd stage) from the host over the serial connection thereto really seems familiar. }:-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne @ 2024-01-09 20:29 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 20:31 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 22:07 ` Clem Cole 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 20:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 1/9/24 9:18 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't exist, and one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to actually using the thing? Short answer is you bought their proprietary typesetting turnkey systems They had to reverse-engineer the phototypesetter hardware to work with any homegrown software to drive it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 20:29 ` Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 20:31 ` Al Kossow 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 20:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 1/9/24 12:29 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/9/24 9:18 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > >> On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't exist, and one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to actually >> using the thing? > Short answer is you bought their proprietary typesetting turnkey systems > > They had to reverse-engineer the phototypesetter hardware to work with any homegrown software to drive it. > and that is a very deep rathole I've gone down before with Compugraphic typesetters ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne 2024-01-09 20:29 ` Al Kossow @ 2024-01-09 22:07 ` Clem Cole 2 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2024-01-09 22:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: segaloco; +Cc: Computer Old Farts Followers [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3066 bytes --] Not really UNIX -- so I'm BCC TUHS and moving to COFF On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 12:19 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote: > On the subject of troff origins, in a world where troff didn't exist, and > one purchases a C/A/T, what was the general approach to actually using the > thing? Was there some sort of datasheet the vendor supplied that the end > user would have to program a driver around, or was there any sort of > example code or other materials provided to give folks a leg up on using > their new, expensive instrument? Did they have any "packaged bundles" for > users of prominent systems such as 360/370 OSs or say one of the DEC OSs? > Basically, the phototypesetter part was turnkey with a built-in minicomputer with a paper tape unit, later a micro and a floppy disk as a cost reduction. The preparation for the typesetter was often done independently, but often the vendor offered some system to prepare the PPT or Floppy. Different typesetter vendors targeted different parts of the market, from small local independent newspapers (such as the one my sister and her husband owned and ran in North Andover MA for many years), to systems that Globe or the Times might. Similarly, books and magazines might have different systems (IIRC the APS-5 was originally targeted for large book publishers). This was all referred to as the 'pre-press' industry and there were lots of players in different parts. Large firms that produced documentation, such as DEC, AT&T *et al*., and even some universities, might own their own gear, or they might send it out to be set. The software varied greatly, depending on the target customer. For instance, by the early 80s, the Boston Globe's input system was still terrible - even though the computers had gotten better. I had a couple of friends working there, and they used to b*tch about it. But big newspapers (and I expect many other large publishers) were often heavy union shops on the back end (layout and presses), so the editors just wanted to set strips of "column wide" text as the layout was manual. I've forgotten the name of the vendor of the typesetter they used, but it was one of the larger firms -- IIRC, it had a DG Nova in it. My sister used CompuGraphic Gear, which was based on 8085's. She had two custom editing stations and the typesetter itself (it sucked). The whole system was under $35K in late-1970s money - but targeted to small newspapers like hers. In the mid-1908s, I got her a Masscomp at a reduced price and put 6 Wyse-75 terminals on it, so she could have her folks edit their stories with vi, run spell, and some of the other UNIX tools. I then reverse-engineered the floppy enough to split out the format she wanted for her stories -- she used a manual layout scheme. She still has to use the custom stuff for headlines and some other parts, but it was a load faster and more parallel (for instance, we wrote an awk script to generate the School Lunch menus, which they published each week). ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4599 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
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* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff [not found] ` <CAGcdajdc5GfTOeP_Vw_AC0E6BdnrBLape1+GEd2JGDCg4n31eQ@mail.gmail.com> @ 2024-01-17 14:08 ` G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-17 15:32 ` Brad Spencer 2024-01-18 7:00 ` Mychaela Falconia [not found] ` <ZalHs6DAuvRwXTuS@fluorine> 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-17 14:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John Gardner; +Cc: Mychaela Falconia, tuhs, groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1293 bytes --] Hi John, At 2024-01-18T00:43:41+1100, John Gardner wrote: > I'm a professional graphic designer with access to commercial typeface > authoring software. Send me the highest-quality and most comprehensive > scans of a C/A/T-printed document, and I'll get to work. If you don't have my scan of CSTR #54 (1976), which helpfully dumps all of the glyphs in the faces used by the Bell Labs CSRC C/A/T-4, let me know and I'll send it along. I won't vouch for its high quality but it should be comprehensive with respect to coverage. > Thanks for reminding me, Branden. :) I've yet to get V7 Unix working > with the latest release of SimH, Let me know in private mail where you got stuck. Maybe I can help. > I'm still up for this, assuming you've not already started. No, I haven't--perhaps because I am an Ada fanboy, the prospect of coding in pre-standard C and its mission to turn anything that can be lexically analyzed into _some_ sequence of machine instructions has not stoked my excitement. (Which isn't to say that one _can't_ write safe code using K&R C; my fear is that having to remember all of the things the compiler won't do for you would overwhelm the task at hand. Too bad Unix V7 didn't have Perl, since this is basically a text transformation problem.) Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-17 14:08 ` G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-17 15:32 ` Brad Spencer 2024-01-17 15:48 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Brad Spencer @ 2024-01-17 15:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: G. Branden Robinson; +Cc: gardnerjohng, falcon, tuhs, groff "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> writes: [snip] > (Which isn't to say that one _can't_ write safe code using K&R C; my > fear is that having to remember all of the things the compiler won't do > for you would overwhelm the task at hand. Too bad Unix V7 didn't have > Perl, since this is basically a text transformation problem.) > > Regards, > Branden I may be very much misremembering this, but I think that Perl 3 might exist for V7. I have very vague memories of bring up V7 in SimH and noted that a perl binary existed there.... but it might have been 2.x BSD...(this is actually the most likely) or something else in SimH. All of the history says Perl 1 was created in late 1987, so V7 certainly would have been around and I wouldn't be suprised that someone attempted to port it. I could not find which OS Perl was an initial target for and I didn't want to grovel though the old Usenet posts. -- Brad Spencer - brad@anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-17 15:32 ` Brad Spencer @ 2024-01-17 15:48 ` Clem Cole 2024-01-17 16:25 ` Rich Salz 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2024-01-17 15:48 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Brad Spencer; +Cc: falcon, gardnerjohng, groff, tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1478 bytes --] Larry wrote it for admin help of his 4.1 BSD vaxen at NASA. (Which was PCC based compiler K&R1 syntax). I do not remember if any one tried to get it running on the 11 because of address space issues. As Brad says you can check all usenet files. Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 9:33 AM Brad Spencer <brad@anduin.eldar.org> wrote: > "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> writes: > > [snip] > > > (Which isn't to say that one _can't_ write safe code using K&R C; my > > fear is that having to remember all of the things the compiler won't do > > for you would overwhelm the task at hand. Too bad Unix V7 didn't have > > Perl, since this is basically a text transformation problem.) > > > > Regards, > > Branden > > > I may be very much misremembering this, but I think that Perl 3 might > exist for V7. I have very vague memories of bring up V7 in SimH and > noted that a perl binary existed there.... but it might have been 2.x > BSD...(this is actually the most likely) or something else in SimH. All > of the history says Perl 1 was created in late 1987, so V7 certainly > would have been around and I wouldn't be suprised that someone attempted > to port it. I could not find which OS Perl was an initial target for > and I didn't want to grovel though the old Usenet posts. > > > > > > -- > Brad Spencer - brad@anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2233 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-17 15:48 ` Clem Cole @ 2024-01-17 16:25 ` Rich Salz 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Rich Salz @ 2024-01-17 16:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: falcon, gardnerjohng, groff, tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 125 bytes --] https://usenet.trashworldnews.com/?thread=614089 posted February 1988 Perl Kit, Version 1.0, Copyright (c) 1987, Larry Wall [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 255 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff [not found] ` <CAGcdajdc5GfTOeP_Vw_AC0E6BdnrBLape1+GEd2JGDCg4n31eQ@mail.gmail.com> 2024-01-17 14:08 ` G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-18 7:00 ` Mychaela Falconia [not found] ` <CAGcdaje=RHbLNZv2Cy=xtuEMaYU7RXMtnom7gYuAMMju2xrHgw@mail.gmail.com> 2024-01-18 13:27 ` G. Branden Robinson [not found] ` <ZalHs6DAuvRwXTuS@fluorine> 2 siblings, 2 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-18 7:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: gardnerjohng; +Cc: tuhs, groff John Gardner wrote: > I'm a professional graphic designer with access to commercial typeface > authoring software. Send me the highest-quality and most comprehensive > scans of a C/A/T-printed document, and I'll get to work. Are you offering to donate your labor in terms of typeface design, or will it be a type of deal where the community will need to collectively pitch in money to cover the cost of you doing it professionally? In either case, the "C/A/T-printed document" of most value to this project would be the same one G. Branden Robinson is referring to: > If you don't have my scan of CSTR #54 (1976), which helpfully dumps all > of the glyphs in the faces used by the Bell Labs CSRC C/A/T-4, let me > know and I'll send it along. I won't vouch for its high quality but it > should be comprehensive with respect to coverage. The paper in question is Nroff/Troff User's Manual by Joseph F. Ossanna, dated 1976-10-11, which was indeed also CSTR #54. The document is 33 pages long in its original form, and page 31 out of the 33 is the most interesting one for the purpose of font recreation: it is the page that exhibits all 4 fonts of 102 characters each. Here are the few published scans I am aware of: 1) Page 245 of: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_January_1979_Volume_2A_SRI_Reprint_June_1980.pdf 2) Page 235 of: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_Vol_2_1983.pdf 3) Page 239 of: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/VA-004A_UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Edition_Seven_Volume_2A_197901.pdf 4) Page 499 of: https://archive.org/details/uum-supplement-4.2bsd Question to Branden: the scan you are referring to as "my scan", how does it compare to the 4 I just linked above? If your scan has better quality than all 4 versions I linked above, can you please make it public? M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
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* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff [not found] ` <CAGcdaje=RHbLNZv2Cy=xtuEMaYU7RXMtnom7gYuAMMju2xrHgw@mail.gmail.com> @ 2024-01-18 8:22 ` Mychaela Falconia 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Mychaela Falconia @ 2024-01-18 8:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: gardnerjohng; +Cc: tuhs, groff Hi again John, > I only meant "professional" insofar as aptitude with graphics is concerned. > I won't accept money; I'm offering my labour out of love for typography, > computer history and its preservation, and of course, the technology that > got Unix the funding it needed to revolutionise computing. In any case, > there's no actual "design" work involved: it's literally just tracing > existing shapes to recreate an existing design. I do stuff like this > <https://github.com/file-icons/icons#why-request-an-icon-cant-i-submit-a-pr> > for *fun*, for crying out loud. Sounds great! If you are indeed serious about trying to recreate the ancient C/A/T character set in PostScript fonts (or some other font format that can be converted into a form that can be downloaded into a genuine PostScript printer), I'll try to find some time to produce the following: 1) A set of C/A/T binary files corresponding to that CSTR #54 manual, as well as BWK's troff tutorial which usually follows right after in book compilations. This step is simply a matter of running the original troff executable (with -t option) on the original source files for these docs - but since I actually run an OS that still includes that original version of troff and you said you don't, it would probably be easier for me to produce and publish these files. 2) A converter tool from C/A/T binary codes to PostScript, using whatever fonts you give it. I'll test it initially using the set of fonts which I developed for my 4.3BSD-Quasijarus pstroff - all characters will be there, all positioning will come from original troff, but it won't look pretty because most PS native font characters don't match those of C/A/T. Then as you progress with your font drawing project, you should be able to substitute your fonts instead of mine, and see how the output improves. > Nice! The more material I have, the merrier. As for the scan that Branden > and I were referring to, I've uploaded a copy to Dropbox Using pdfimages utility with -list option, I compared the image format and resolution in various scans I described in my previous mail, plus this new one you just shared, and concluded that the best quality is contained in these two: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_January_1979_Volume_2A_SRI_Reprint_June_1980.pdf http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/VA-004A_UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Edition_Seven_Volume_2A_197901.pdf Here are extracted PNG images of just the relevant page from both PDFs: https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/troff/cstr54-fontpage-sri.png https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/troff/cstr54-fontpage-ucb.png Each PNG is a lossless extract from the corresponding PDF, made with pdfimages utility. Each image is described as being 600x600 DPI in PDF metadata, and the print is said to be in 12 point - numbers for converting from pixels to .001m units in font reconstruction... M~ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff 2024-01-18 7:00 ` Mychaela Falconia [not found] ` <CAGcdaje=RHbLNZv2Cy=xtuEMaYU7RXMtnom7gYuAMMju2xrHgw@mail.gmail.com> @ 2024-01-18 13:27 ` G. Branden Robinson 1 sibling, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-18 13:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Mychaela Falconia; +Cc: tuhs, groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1146 bytes --] Hi Mychaela, At 2024-01-17T23:00:14-0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote: > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_January_1979_Volume_2A_SRI_Reprint_June_1980.pdf > > 2) Page 235 of: > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_Vol_2_1983.pdf > > 3) Page 239 of: > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/VA-004A_UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Edition_Seven_Volume_2A_197901.pdf > > 4) Page 499 of: > > https://archive.org/details/uum-supplement-4.2bsd > > Question to Branden: the scan you are referring to as "my scan", how > does it compare to the 4 I just linked above? By "my scan", I meant "the copy of the scan I happen to have handy", rather than one I'd done myself. What I had handy was the same as your #2, above. > If your scan has better quality than all 4 versions I linked above, > can you please make it public? Sorry to disappoint. Thanks for all these links, though! More people should familiarize themselves with Volume 2 of the Seventh Edition Manual, and I hope they will. Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
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* [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff [not found] ` <ZalHs6DAuvRwXTuS@fluorine> @ 2024-01-19 16:52 ` G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2024-01-19 16:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: groff; +Cc: John Gardner, Mychaela Falconia, tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1744 bytes --] Hi Lennart, At 2024-01-18T15:45:55+0000, Lennart Jablonka wrote: > Quoth John Gardner: > > Thanks for reminding me, Branden. :) I've yet to get V7 Unix working with > > the latest release of SimH, so that's kind of stalled my ability to develop > > something in K&R-friendly C. > > I went ahead and write a little C/A/T-to-later-troff-output converter in > v7-friendly and C89-conforming C: > > https://git.sr.ht/~humm/catdit This is an exciting prospect but I can't actually see anything there. I get an error. "401 Unauthorized You don't have the necessary permissions to access this page. Index" > I’m not confident in having got the details of spacing right (Is that > 55-unit offset when switching font sizes correct?) I've never heard of this C/A/T feature/wart before. Huh. > and the character codes emitted are still those of the C/A/T, > resulting in the wrong glyphs being used. The codes should probably be remapped by default, with a command-line option to restore the original ones. I would of course recommend writing out 'C' commands with groff special character names. > I created the attached document like this: > > v7$ troff -t /usr/man/man0/title >title.cat > host$ catdit <title.cat | dpost -F. -Tcat >title.ps > > (Where do the two blank pages at the end come from?) Good question; we may need to rouse a C/A/T expert. > PS: Branden, for rougher results, if you happen to have a Tektronix > 4014 at hand (like the one emulated by XTerm), you can use that to > look at v7 troff’s output. Tell your SIMH to pass control bytes > through and run troff -t | tc. I'd love to, just please make your repo available to the public. :) Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2024-01-19 16:53 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 27+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2024-01-10 18:50 [TUHS] Original print of V7 manual? / My own version of troff tuhs 2024-01-10 22:04 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis 2024-01-10 23:46 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-11 2:20 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-11 13:52 ` Sebastien F4GRX 2024-01-11 22:48 ` Dave Horsfall 2024-01-11 23:47 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey 2024-01-11 23:59 ` [TUHS] Re: Subscribing to TUHS and COFF Warren Toomey via TUHS -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2024-01-08 0:20 [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-07 21:59 ` [TUHS] My own version of troff Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-08 3:24 ` [TUHS] Re: Original print of V7 manual? / " G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-08 5:10 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-08 7:11 ` G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-09 9:38 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-09 16:27 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 17:18 ` segaloco via TUHS 2024-01-09 18:05 ` Phil Budne 2024-01-09 18:30 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS 2024-01-09 20:29 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 20:31 ` Al Kossow 2024-01-09 22:07 ` Clem Cole [not found] ` <CAGcdajdc5GfTOeP_Vw_AC0E6BdnrBLape1+GEd2JGDCg4n31eQ@mail.gmail.com> 2024-01-17 14:08 ` G. Branden Robinson 2024-01-17 15:32 ` Brad Spencer 2024-01-17 15:48 ` Clem Cole 2024-01-17 16:25 ` Rich Salz 2024-01-18 7:00 ` Mychaela Falconia [not found] ` <CAGcdaje=RHbLNZv2Cy=xtuEMaYU7RXMtnom7gYuAMMju2xrHgw@mail.gmail.com> 2024-01-18 8:22 ` Mychaela Falconia 2024-01-18 13:27 ` G. Branden Robinson [not found] ` <ZalHs6DAuvRwXTuS@fluorine> 2024-01-19 16:52 ` G. Branden Robinson
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