From: matt@noggin.thenog.net (Matthew Gates) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Documentation query Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:13:15 +0100 Organization: RemarQ http://www.remarQ.com Lines: 24 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.2.137.106 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: 932663542 FA6OEGRHS896AC302C uk21.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarq.com X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.8 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!remarQ-uK!rQdQ!supernews.com!remarQ.com!remarQ69!noggin.thenog.net!nobody Hi there folks. I've been taking the first few steps into the world of writing man pages for some of my code, and discovered this troff thing that turns out to be really quite nifty. My question is, how does it relate to other page description / typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as languages? I'm aware of TeX and suspect it's a pretty similar sort of thing - perhaps with more emphasis on typesetting issues. I dunno. What came first, what is best for what, and which should I learn first? I've been looking at some of the basic syntax for troff documents and like the look of it. Plus I've just discovered pic (neat). -- If you want me to relinquish my grip on ignorance, you'll have to beat it out of me, bit by bit. ###### From: mjp16@wumpus.its.uow.edu.au (Matthew Palmer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 23 Jul 1999 02:53:23 GMT Organization: University of Wollongong, Australia Lines: 53 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: mjp16@uow.edu.au NNTP-Posting-Host: wumpus.its.uow.edu.au X-Trace: wyrm.its.uow.edu.au 932698403 84 130.130.68.12 (23 Jul 1999 02:53:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@wyrm.its.uow.edu.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Jul 1999 02:53:23 GMT User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.4 (UNIX) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.26.210.166!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!mjp16 On Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:13:15 +0100, Matthew Gates wrote: >does it relate to other page description / >typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as >languages? The troff/nroff suite is classified as a typesetting system. >I'm aware of TeX and suspect it's a pretty similar >sort of thing - perhaps with more emphasis on >typesetting issues. I dunno. It is somewhat of an alternative to TeX, it has more of a Unix-centric universe - which should tell you what it's like to use. >What came first, what is best for what, and which >should I learn first? I've been looking at some The troff/nroff system came first. Developed at Bell Labs in the dim dark days of early computing, the first incarnation was called RUNOFF (as in, to make a runoff of a document). Redeveloped, and called NROFF (for New RunOFF) because of the six-letter-ism of old machines, it was extended into TROFF (Typesetter RunOFF) for the Wang CAT typesetter. When other typesetters were added, the new program was called ditroff (for Device Independant Typesetter RunOFF) and the CAT-specific program otroff (for Original TROFF). My recollection may be a bit hazy there, check the Jargon File and "Text Processing and Typesetting on Unix Systems" by Barron and Rees (Prentice Hall, methinks, out of print now) for history and complete usage instructions. I prefer TeX for general document churning, because I like it's default layout and hence no work is required to get it looking how I want it. nroff/troff is useful for man pages and so forth, because I despise the GNU info system. >of the basic syntax for troff documents and like >the look of it. Plus I've just discovered pic I thought it was interesting, never really LIKED it, as such. A little too obscure and needs a good knowledge of typesetting to get the most out of it. Adding the macro packages to it helps, but I've found I can't do everything I want without resorting to troffisms, which screws me up a bit. LaTeX, OTOH, does everything I want without needing to resort to the underlying system. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- #include | GE/CS d- s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ UL+++ P+ L++ !E Matthew Palmer | W-- N++ o? K- w--(---) O- M-(--) V? PS+ PE Y+ mjp16@uow.edu.au | PGP+ t X+ R+ tv+ b+++ D++ Ge>++++ h* r++ !y+ ###### From: jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 23 Jul 1999 02:58:41 GMT Organization: The University of Iowa Lines: 47 Message-ID: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!masternews.telia.net!news.algonet.se!algonet!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out-b.news.pipex.net.MISMATCH!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!uunet!ams.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!news.uiowa.edu!not-for-mail From article , by matt@noggin.thenog.net (Matthew Gates): > ... discovered this troff thing that turns out to > be really quite nifty. My question is, how > does it relate to other page description / > typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as > languages? RUNOFF on the MIT CTSS system is the granddad of them RUNOFF begat ROFF, a nice little formatter for line printer and later letter-quality printer output on the G(E)COS system and possibly also MULTICS. RUNOFF begat SCRIPT, a similar lineprinter formatter for the IBM 360 family. SCRIPT syntax looks alot like RUNOFF. ROFF begat NROFF, a ROFF lookalike for UNIX. Bot were written by Osanna (did I spell that right)? NROFF begat TROFF, a version Osanna developed for the CAT phototypesetter attached to the G(E)COS system at Murray Hill. Hence the GCOS field in /etc/passwd. To run a TROFF job, you needed a GCOS account. Mine was DJ02. Anyway, TROFF syntax looks alot like RUNOFF. SCRIPT inspired SGML, from whence HTML etc. The horrible deficiencies of TROFF and SCRIPT motivated Knuth to develop TeX. The worst of these problems were a number of areas where TROFF depended on specific (mis)features of the CAT phototypesetter, such as the limit of 4 fonts per document, and the lack of a clear understanding of stacks in the design of RUNOFF, largely preserved in ROFF, NROFF, TROFF and SCRIPT. The horrible deficiencies of TeX motivated Lamport to develop LaTeX. Lout was developed by Jeff Kingston as an elegant replacement for LaTeX. It is elegant; I've used it for several large documents. In any event, all of the above have been used to typeset everything from books to class handouts and people's homework. In general, the newer markup languages are better than their predecessors, but all are at least minimally adequate for serious work. Doug Jones jones@cs.uiowa.edu ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 23 Jul 1999 04:20:27 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 58 Message-ID: <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: saul5.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 932703627 30482 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.verio.net!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article , Matthew Gates wrote: >I've been taking the first few steps into the >world of writing man pages for some of my code, >and discovered this troff thing that turns out to >be really quite nifty. My question is, how >does it relate to other page description / >typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as >languages? Matthew Palmer already covered the basic history. If you want the gory details of the origin of troff and nroff, this group's a pretty good place (because people here know about the many RUNOFF programs written over the years which inspired troff but were generally less powerful, as well as other typesetting programs that have been created). Unfortunately I'll have to look on my messy hard drive before I can give you any detailed info. > >I'm aware of TeX and suspect it's a pretty similar >sort of thing - perhaps with more emphasis on >typesetting issues. I dunno. The process of creating a page in troff or nroff is very simple (it works from the top down, basically). TeX, on the other hand, has all kinds of optimizations and special features that can change the sppearance of lines and paragraphs to produce the best possible output. Twaking TeX to do what you want can be difficult. There are many more books on TeX than troff. _The TeXbook_ and _TeX: The Program_ by Donald Knuth are the definitive manual and source code, respectively. I also like _TeX by Topic_ by Victor Eijkhout. All of those will give you a feeling for TeX's strengths and for how TeX differs from troff. If you want to know about TeX' weaknesses, you'll have to check out comp.text.tex. Their FAQ also has a list of more books. For troff, look for old books in libraries, or see the BSD manuals or Dennis Ritchie's home page or the Plan 9 home page or the comp.text FAQ. >What came first, what is best for what, and which >should I learn first? I've been looking at some >of the basic syntax for troff documents and like >the look of it. Plus I've just discovered pic >(neat). Definitely troff came first. It's still very good for manpages and straightforward documents. I'd learn it for those reasons. I like pic too. You can actually use it with TeX if you have a program called tpic and a suitable DVI driver (XDVI works). Also note that groff is troff with some of TeX' algorithms (for hyphenation and paragraph optimization) and that groff can create DVI files from troff input. -- Derek ###### From: johnb@invision.co.uk (John Birch) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:15:27 GMT Message-ID: <3798322b.4190405@news.demon.co.uk> References: <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: johnb@invision.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: invision.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: invision.demon.co.uk:158.152.59.42 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 932721617 nnrp-03:8710 NO-IDENT invision.demon.co.uk:158.152.59.42 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Lines: 17 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!colt.net!newsfeed.icl.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!invision.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 23 Jul 1999 04:20:27 GMT, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) wrote: >.... produce the best possible output. Twaking TeX to do what ^^^^^^^^^ >you want can be difficult. Hey lookee - a new verb - can I have it? Please... please :-) regards John B. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Fri, 23 Jul 99 09:25:22 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 26 Message-ID: <7n9jc6$3ms$2@autumn.news.rcn.net> References: <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <3798322b.4190405@news.demon.co.uk> <7n9dt8$fog$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> X-Trace: FoomuhbCVXWhU/W+56OAUFJkrqS3+EYYSlrT6jZ5GVE= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Jul 1999 11:23:50 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!d5 In article <7n9dt8$fog$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) wrote: >In article <3798322b.4190405@news.demon.co.uk>, John Birch wrote: >>On 23 Jul 1999 04:20:27 GMT, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) >>wrote: >> >> >> >>>.... produce the best possible output. Twaking TeX to do what >> ^^^^^^^^^ >>>you want can be difficult. >> >> >>Hey lookee - a new verb - can I have it? >> >>Please... please :-) > >If you can figure out what it means, you can have it. I thought you spoketh it on purpose :-). I figured it was a cross between tweaking and whacking (which how I did a lot of the doc production using DEC's PDP-10 RUNOFF). /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 23 Jul 1999 09:50:32 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 19 Message-ID: <7n9dt8$fog$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <3798322b.4190405@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul4.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 932723432 16144 (None) 140.142.17.39 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <3798322b.4190405@news.demon.co.uk>, John Birch wrote: >On 23 Jul 1999 04:20:27 GMT, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) >wrote: > > > >>.... produce the best possible output. Twaking TeX to do what > ^^^^^^^^^ >>you want can be difficult. > > >Hey lookee - a new verb - can I have it? > >Please... please :-) If you can figure out what it means, you can have it. -- Derek ###### From: alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu (Alexandre Pechtchanski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: <379b96e0.2446970@Rockyd> References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 23 Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:25:31 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 932747170 129.85.24.56 (Fri, 23 Jul 1999 12:26:10 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 12:26:10 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail On 23 Jul 1999 02:53:23 GMT, mjp16@wumpus.its.uow.edu.au (Matthew Palmer) wrote: >On Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:13:15 +0100, Matthew Gates >wrote: >>does it relate to other page description / >>typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as >>languages? > >The troff/nroff suite is classified as a typesetting system. > >>I'm aware of TeX and suspect it's a pretty similar >>sort of thing - perhaps with more emphasis on >>typesetting issues. I dunno. > >It is somewhat of an alternative to TeX, it has more of a Unix-centric >universe - which should tell you what it's like to use. Wasn't it also an official reason for developing Unix? I've heard that Ritchie and Kernigan got to play with that old PDP-7 because they had a project to develop typesetting program. Care to comment, Mr. Ritchie? [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: Brian.dot.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca (Brian Inglis) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:11:04 GMT Organization: Systematic Software Reply-To: Brian.dot.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca Message-ID: <379abae9.12386510@news.cadvision.com> References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.148.130.69 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.148.130.69 X-Trace: 23 Jul 1999 17:11:05 -0700, 207.148.130.69 Lines: 28 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.50.1.43 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.26.210.166!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!nntp.cadvision.com!news.cadvision.com!207.148.130.69 On 23 Jul 1999 02:53:23 GMT, mjp16@wumpus.its.uow.edu.au (Matthew Palmer) wrote: >On Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:13:15 +0100, Matthew Gates >wrote: >>does it relate to other page description / >>typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as >>languages? >The troff/nroff suite is classified as a typesetting system. >>I'm aware of TeX and suspect it's a pretty similar >>sort of thing - perhaps with more emphasis on >>typesetting issues. I dunno. >It is somewhat of an alternative to TeX, it has more of a Unix-centric >universe - which should tell you what it's like to use. >>What came first, what is best for what, and which >>should I learn first? I've been looking at some [snip] >My recollection may be a bit hazy there, check the Jargon File and "Text >Processing and Typesetting on Unix Systems" by Barron and Rees (Prentice >Hall, methinks, out of print now) for history and complete usage >instructions. See also: "UNIX Text Processing"; Dougherty, Dale and O'Reilly, Tim; H.W.Sams & Co, Hayden Books, UNIX System Library; 1987; ISBN 0-672-46291-5. Copyright is O'Reilly and Associates. [snip] Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada -- Brian_Inglis@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca) use address above to reply ###### From: Brian.dot.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca (Brian Inglis) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:11:05 GMT Organization: Systematic Software Reply-To: Brian.dot.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca Message-ID: <379bbc5e.12759194@news.cadvision.com> References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.148.130.69 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.148.130.69 X-Trace: 23 Jul 1999 17:11:07 -0700, 207.148.130.69 Lines: 93 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.50.1.43 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.26.210.166!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!nntp.cadvision.com!news.cadvision.com!207.148.130.69 On 23 Jul 1999 02:58:41 GMT, jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) wrote: >From article , >by matt@noggin.thenog.net (Matthew Gates): >> ... discovered this troff thing that turns out to >> be really quite nifty. My question is, how >> does it relate to other page description / >> typesetting / whatever-the-hell-its-classified-as >> languages? > >RUNOFF on the MIT CTSS system is the granddad of them > >RUNOFF begat ROFF, a nice little formatter for line printer and > later letter-quality printer output on the G(E)COS system and > possibly also MULTICS. > >RUNOFF begat SCRIPT, a similar lineprinter formatter for the > IBM 360 family. SCRIPT syntax looks alot like RUNOFF. > >ROFF begat NROFF, a ROFF lookalike for UNIX. Bot were written by > Osanna (did I spell that right)? > >NROFF begat TROFF, a version Osanna developed for the CAT > phototypesetter attached to the G(E)COS system at Murray Hill. > Hence the GCOS field in /etc/passwd. To run a TROFF job, you > needed a GCOS account. Mine was DJ02. Anyway, TROFF syntax > looks alot like RUNOFF. > >SCRIPT inspired SGML, from whence HTML etc. SCRIPT "inspired" Document Composition Facility (DCF/370) and Generalized Markup Language (GML :tag.:Etag. misbegot Standard GML , ...) which supported displays, IBM 2741 typewriters, 1403 line printers, Displaywriters, 3800, 4250 and with add on drivers and a bit of work, 6670 and Xerox laser printers; and the (b'dized) PC version supported IBM dot matrix printers. We used IBM/370 VM DCF and customized, standardized and simplified DCF with scripts, templates and editor macros to eliminate the secretarial bottleneck for memos, letters, documents and reports. When the company switched from terminals to Macs in the early 80s, people told me they still used Script in a terminal window, because it was much easier and faster to type the information in a customized editor template and hit the function key to format and print, than manually format every line in MacWrite; and the IBM proportional laser output looked better than the LaserWriter's PS fonts (a ligature in every word!) >The horrible deficiencies of TROFF and SCRIPT motivated Knuth > to develop TeX. The worst of these problems were a number of > areas where TROFF depended on specific (mis)features of the CAT > phototypesetter, such as the limit of 4 fonts per document, and > the lack of a clear understanding of stacks in the design of RUNOFF, > largely preserved in ROFF, NROFF, TROFF and SCRIPT. > >The horrible deficiencies of TeX motivated Lamport to develop LaTeX. > >Lout was developed by Jeff Kingston as an elegant replacement for LaTeX. > It is elegant; I've used it for several large documents. > >In any event, all of the above have been used to typeset everything from >books to class handouts and people's homework. In general, the newer >markup languages are better than their predecessors, but all are at >least minimally adequate for serious work. > > Doug Jones > jones@cs.uiowa.edu I also developed a similar beasty one year in the mid-70s for a defense contractor, on PDP-11 RSTS/E in Basic Plus 2, based on DEC runoff and roff ideas. The contractor then sold it to other contractors' documentation departments. Our first customer was a contractor who also built their own documentation systems, but whose documentation department could not get one internally (talk about the cobbler's children!) That was the good old days when the in house users tested the product by writing the documentation using the product (eat your own ....) and the whole development group went out to the first customer site to do the installation, verification and demo. That was also the bad old days when we worked 48 straight on the final build, and had just about enough brain cells awake in the whole group to do the work and answer simple questions. Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada -- Brian_Inglis@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca) use address above to reply ###### From: Dennis Ritchie Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 01:58:20 +0100 Organization: Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies Lines: 15 Message-ID: <37990FAC.FDD@bell-labs.com> References: <379b96e0.2446970@Rockyd> Reply-To: dmr@bell-labs.com NNTP-Posting-Host: cebu.cs.bell-labs.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; U) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.cwix.com!216.17.128.8!newsfeed.frii.net!uunet!ffx.uu.net!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!news Alexandre Pechtchanski asked: > Wasn't [word-processing] also an official reason for developing Unix? > I've heard that Ritchie > and Kernigan got to play with that old PDP-7 because they had a project to > develop typesetting program. Care to comment, Mr. Ritchie? Well, Thompson, and no, though at this large a red-shift things become hard to resolve. See http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html about 2/3 of the way through. Dennis ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Subject: Re: Documentation query Message-ID: Organization: NDS Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 23:27:55 -0400 References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pm9-173.his.com Lines: 36 X-Authenticated-User: ehrice Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!206.132.27.155!nntp.frontiernet.net!nntp.gctr.net!news4.his.com!user In article <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>, jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,319338 wrote: > RUNOFF on the MIT CTSS system is the granddad of them Done as a project so Jerry Saltzer could do his thesis on the computer, IIRC. Tom? > RUNOFF begat ROFF, a nice little formatter for line printer and > later letter-quality printer output on the G(E)COS system and > possibly also MULTICS. Actually, it begat G(E)COS RUNOFZF and Multics (note: not "MULTICS") runoff, which were very similar. GCOS RUNOFF used 4-letter codes, while Multics runoff used 2-letter codes, but there was great similarity. An independent implementation was done at Calgary, a Honeywell customer, and from that came the TED editor (to replace GCOS EDIT), and what I /think/ was NROFF on GCOS, which was really very much like the Multics runoff. > ROFF begat NROFF, a ROFF lookalike for UNIX. Bot were written by > Osanna (did I spell that right)? Just a note that this NROFF and the NROFF I mentioned above weren't the same thing. > In any event, all of the above have been used to typeset everything from > books to class handouts and people's homework. In general, the newer > markup languages are better than their predecessors, but all are at > least minimally adequate for serious work. Yeah. If Saltzer's RUNOFF was First Generation, then I used a package that was home-brew at Johns Hopkins that must have been roughly Generation Minus Two. And it was /still/ better than hand-typing a very large document and introducing errors on every revision. ###### From: Anders.X.Thulin@telia.se (Anders Thulin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 08:52:22 +0200 Organization: Telia Engineering AB, Linkoping, Sweden Lines: 20 Message-ID: <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: jupiter.linkoping.trab.se Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!malmo.trab.se!linkoping.trab.se!not-for-mail In article <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>, Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879 wrote: > [...] SCRIBE probably deserves a nod, as well. I don't recall its early history anymore, but it was sold as a commercial product in the early '80s. Easier on the brain that either TeX or Troff -- at the time, at least. And much easier to work with: some things were just plain impossible to do, so there was no time spent on trying to do them; whereas with TeX and troff, there was always some way of getting it done ... -- Anders Thulin Anders.X.Thulin@telia.se 013-23 55 32 Telia ProSoft AB, Teknikringen 6, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 08:24:42 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Message-ID: <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul9.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 932977482 5474 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Lines: 44 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!newsfeed.direct.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se>, Anders Thulin wrote: > SCRIBE probably deserves a nod, as well. > > I don't recall its early history anymore, but it was sold as a >commercial product in the early '80s. > > Easier on the brain that either TeX or Troff -- at the time, at >least. And much easier to work with: some things were just plain >impossible to do, so there was no time spent on trying to do them; >whereas with TeX and troff, there was always some way of getting it >done ... Can you name something that was impossible? I've never used SCRIBE. I have looked through the user's manual (maybe an old version). I don't think I've seen seen the programmer's manual. I know about SCRIBE's strengths. From the novice user's point of view, creating a document according to a canned style was easy and looked good (even in source form). From the advanced user's or programmer's point of view, SCRIBE had good programming capabilities (weren't they just like any other programming language?) that presumably also looked good in source form. And SCRIBE did a good job _as a unified package_ of handling many typesetting tasks -- including things like generating indexes which require extra programs. But I don't know as much about SCRIBE's weaknesses. I do know there was no device-independent output or high-quality fonts. (Someone had left a few output sheets in the manual I saw; they showed how to create jury-rigged mathematical and logical symbols; it looked terrible!) So I would guess the impossibilities you mentioned would involve the typesetting algorithms of the program or the abstract model it used to communicate with devices. Is that right? (And for anyone who thinks that isn't a problem any more, consider that there are apparently some things that are very difficult or impossible in PostScript.) It's strange that TeX is pretty weak where SCRIBE is strong, and that TeX's strengths concentrate on (my guesses about) SCRIBE's weaknesses. -- Derek ###### From: Anders.X.Thulin@telia.se (Anders Thulin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 16:56:53 +0200 Organization: Telia Engineering AB, Linkoping, Sweden Lines: 77 Message-ID: <7nhsvl$4sl$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: jupiter.linkoping.trab.se Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!malmo.trab.se!linkoping.trab.se!not-for-mail In article <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, Derek Peschel wrote: >In article <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se>, >Anders Thulin wrote: > >> SCRIBE probably deserves a nod, as well. >> >> I don't recall its early history anymore, but it was sold as a >>commercial product in the early '80s. >> >> Easier on the brain that either TeX or Troff -- at the time, at >>least. And much easier to work with: some things were just plain >>impossible to do, so there was no time spent on trying to do them; >>whereas with TeX and troff, there was always some way of getting it >>done ... > >Can you name something that was impossible? It's around 15 years since I used it ... Finer points of typesetting and spacing: italic correction. Math was added on later, I think. And some things were locked into the program: I recall an argument about how a @quad was defined -- if it was a horizontal measure only, or also a vertical measure. I remember they changed it, but before they did, a few things went typographically wrong. That was actually why I came to like it: SCRIBE was far more close to pure markup: ignore how things 'look', just describe them. (No 1/1000pt kerning to tweak a display ... :-) You need a man behind the curtain who knows how to do things right, though. >view, SCRIBE had good programming capabilities (weren't they just like any >other programming language?) that presumably also looked good in source >form. I don't remember any programming possibilities. The administrator could do a bit more than the user, being able to modify the equivalent of style sheets and things like that. But I don't remember the user had much choice. >But I don't know as much about SCRIBE's weaknesses. I do know there was no >device-independent output or high-quality fonts. It managed to interface pretty reasonably to a LaserWriter 1, so Type 1 fonts were certainly possible -- that's how we used it. PostScript illustrations were also possible -- I recall we used Adobe Illustrator 88 to do some line art. With that combination we did some stuff that was better-looking than the professional tech writers we hired for the 'user-friendly manuals' did -- they were still at the Diablo typewheel stage. A few things we had to leave blanks for, and add in ink before we printed the manuals, but that happened only once or twice in about three years. Math was ... well, good enough. Not as nice as TeX, but not so bad that we would write it in by hand later. >It's strange that TeX is pretty weak where SCRIBE is strong, and that TeX's >strengths concentrate on (my guesses about) SCRIBE's weaknesses. They can't really be compared. Scribe is/was high-level, TeX is low-level. Scribe is/was almost pure markup, TeX is ... well, not much markup to speak of. (SCRIBE is Pascal, TeX is C++, perhaps ... :-) LaTeX was largely inspired by SCRIBE -- the mistake with LaTeX was, I think, that it was implemented in TeX, and not as a separate translator: the underlying system 'shone through' in several places. Digital (or perhaps only the VAX/VMS groups?) did something like that in the mid 80s: wrote documentation in some high-level language, which was then translated into TeX. -- Anders Thulin Anders.X.Thulin@telia.se 013-23 55 32 Telia ProSoft AB, Teknikringen 6, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 9 User-Agent: Gnus/5.070088 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.88) Emacs/20.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:16:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.63.28.138 X-Complaints-To: support@adcomsys.net X-Trace: news-west.eli.net 933009364 209.63.28.138 (Mon, 26 Jul 1999 11:16:04 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 11:16:04 MDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!xmission!news.inconnect.com!news-west.eli.net!not-for-mail donw thru CSC side ... madnick did SCRIPT on CMS ... that had period/two-digit-codes ... then the G/M/L guys added GML to SCRIPT ... which also begat SGML ... which begat HTML, XML, etc. -- -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@adcomsys.net, lynn@garlic.com http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ http://www.adcomsys.net/lynn ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 23:06:34 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 31 Message-ID: <7niplq$a5u$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul9.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 933030394 10430 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article , Juergen Nickelsen wrote: >dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes: >> I know about SCRIBE's strengths. From the novice user's point of >> view, creating a document according to a canned style was easy and >> looked good (even in source form). > >I remember that the documentation of some program I encountered in >the late 80s came as "MicroSCRIBE" (sp?) source; it might have been >MS-Kermit or MicroEmacs. IIRC MicroSCRIBE was allegedly a free >implementation of (perhaps a subset of) SCRIBE, but I have never >seen it myself. The source was indeed quite well human-readable, at >least more than most TeX or troff sources. It was (is?) MicrEmacs. The author (Daniel Lawrence) distributed the docs in MicroSCRIBE format because he was writing the MicroSCRIBE program. Unfortunately I don't think he finished it, because I've never heard of it. I've seen the way MicroEmacs has evolved (or gotten out of hand?) over the years. (For a while, the official MicroEmacs "home base" was a BBS. There's now a Web page but it's relatively recent. Also, the various ports of MicroEmacs have slightly different version numbers and are not necessarily unified. True, that could be the fault of the target system or the person who did the port.) The point is, I believe that Mr. Lawrence's style of managing software is relatively casual. He probably lost interest in MicroSCRIBE a long time ago. -- Derek ###### From: Juergen Nickelsen Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 23:35:26 +0200 Organization: [Posted via] Interactive Networx Lines: 15 Sender: nickel@goting.jn.berlin.snafu.de Message-ID: References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: n36-47.berlin.snafu.de X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!unlisys!news.snafu.de!goting.jn.berlin.snafu.de!nobody dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes: > I know about SCRIBE's strengths. From the novice user's point of > view, creating a document according to a canned style was easy and > looked good (even in source form). I remember that the documentation of some program I encountered in the late 80s came as "MicroSCRIBE" (sp?) source; it might have been MS-Kermit or MicroEmacs. IIRC MicroSCRIBE was allegedly a free implementation of (perhaps a subset of) SCRIBE, but I have never seen it myself. The source was indeed quite well human-readable, at least more than most TeX or troff sources. -- Juergen Nickelsen ###### From: atwoodj@bronze.CS.ORST.EDU (John Atwood) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 26 Jul 1999 23:49:38 GMT Organization: Oregon State University, College of Engineering Lines: 15 Message-ID: <7nis6i$g3n$1@news.NERO.NET> References: <7nh0j6$4ku$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> <7nh60a$5b2$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <7nhsvl$4sl$1@jupiter.linkoping.trab.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: bronze.cs.orst.edu X-Trace: news.NERO.NET 933032978 16503 128.193.38.41 (26 Jul 1999 23:49:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@nero.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Jul 1999 23:49:38 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.nero.net!atwoodj > They can't really be compared. Scribe is/was high-level, TeX is >low-level. Scribe is/was almost pure markup, TeX is ... well, not much >markup to speak of. (SCRIBE is Pascal, TeX is C++, perhaps ... :-) > > LaTeX was largely inspired by SCRIBE -- the mistake with LaTeX was, >I think, that it was implemented in TeX, and not as a separate >translator: the underlying system 'shone through' in several places. Curl is an interesting new contender, I seem to recall that it derives from Scribe: http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/curl/ John Atwood ###### From: "Alan T. Bowler" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:12:28 -0400 Organization: UUNET Canada News Transport Lines: 29 Message-ID: <379DDA6C.109DE42E@thinkage.on.ca> References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.102.11.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.uunet.ca!not-for-mail Edward Rice wrote: > > In article <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>, > jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,319338 wrote: > > > RUNOFF on the MIT CTSS system is the granddad of them > > Done as a project so Jerry Saltzer could do his thesis on the computer, > IIRC. Tom? > > > RUNOFF begat ROFF, a nice little formatter for line printer and > > later letter-quality printer output on the G(E)COS system and > > possibly also MULTICS. > > Actually, it begat G(E)COS RUNOFZF and Multics (note: not "MULTICS") > runoff, which were very similar. GCOS RUNOFF used 4-letter codes, while > Multics runoff used 2-letter codes, but there was great similarity. An > independent implementation was done at Calgary, a Honeywell customer, and > from that came the TED editor (to replace GCOS EDIT), and what I /think/ > was NROFF on GCOS, which was really very much like the Multics runoff. No the previous statement was right. RUNOFF in a sense begat ROFF on Gcos. Gcos did have RUNOFF which was/is delivered as stock software from Honeywell (now Bull). It is written in GMAP (assembler). ROFF was availble from Bell Labs written in B, (probably translated from BCPL). ROFF was a considerable step up from Gcos RUNOFF since it allowed you to define text registers (macros). It later evolved into TF (Text Formatter). Which is still available today. On Unix the ROFF B source evolved into C an begat NROFF/TROFF. ###### From: "John Carpenter" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <7n8lp1$big$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> Subject: Re: Documentation query: Script Lines: 79 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:16:40 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.207.83 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mediaone.net X-Trace: wbnws01.ne.mediaone.net 933023784 24.128.207.83 (Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:16:24 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:16:24 EDT Organization: Road Runner Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!24.128.1.125!chnws03.mediaone.net!24.128.1.101!chnws05.ne.mediaone.net!24.128.44.7!wbnws01.ne.mediaone.net.POSTED!not-for-mail In that same MIT CTSS facility was an IBM 360 computer. The colleagues of the fathers of RUNOFF for the GCOS computer wrote a similar dot command text formatter called Script. MIT Script continued for several years, until the rights and maintenance were transferred to University of Waterloo (Ontario), in about 1978. Waterloo Script was written in Waterloo Assembler G. The author (or re-engineer and enhancer, I guess), was Dr. Bruce Utley. Bruce was also on the Waterloo Assembler G committee, and when someone called for tech support, he'd get out the Assembler listing for the relevant version of Script and find the problem. Script was 'freeware' to the IBM mainframe user community until Version 3, about 1982. After that they licensed it (at IBM's insistence, I think, or maybe to pay for user support time). Script was not just a "what you see is what you get" utility. It was far more than that because it was a procedural programming language. It had if-then-else, goto, system variables, and keywords. It had table of contents and indexing functions, and multi-file capability (.im - imbed statements). So, it was a "what you can get is more than you could possibly see on the screen at one time" utility. I used it to mail-merge form letters from data files in 1981. The only PC word processor to come close to its program logic capability (until very recently) was a CP/M program called Palantir. IBM Script was "Field Developed Software," and it turns out, was just an IBM-tested version of Waterloo Script. (IBM had several grants going at U Waterloo. They used the assembler too!) So, by using Waterloo Script, one could stay a version ahead in features, and get direct support from the authors! Part of the evolution of Waterloo Script was a macro language that used mnemonics that were recognizable by typographers and editors (so instead of .H1, and instead of .br). It was called Generalized Markup Language. IBM took this and evolved it into a markup language that accommodated a wider range of output devices, and called it Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). This SGML became the basis for the CALS-compliant, platform independent documents in the early 1990's. As SGML came into wider use in the Computer-Aided Publishing era of the early and mid-1990's, variations came into use. University of Illinois did one (under a Federal grant, I think) called Hypertext Markup Language, to display text in format on screens of various computers, using a new viewer called Mosaic. And now you know how the HTML that we know and love as the foundation for Internet Web pages, all started with a small group of MIT computer science majors who wanted to type their term papers in the computer center! BTW, the Runoff program mentioned in the previous posts is also the roots of DEC Standard Runoff for DecSystem 10 and 20 and VAX/VMS, and for nroff and troff for Unix. Why? Because that's were some of the students from the MIT computer center got jobs! (Digital in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and Western Electric Bell Labs in New Jersey). And they wanted to continue to use the formatting languages they knew, to write their memos, reports, and program documentation (not to mention keeping their resumes updated!). So they ported it to these different environments. In their spare time. For free. They were very good! Dr. Donald E. Knuth invented TeX and Metafont rather independently, in 1977-79 at Stanford University. He wanted to control the typesetting of equations for his mathematics textbooks, because he found it difficult to get commercial typesetters to set them correctly. So, TeX (pronounced 'tek') is an independent path that contributed more to computerized typesetting (the ATEX system, for example, which was commercially viable for about 10 years), to the development of Xerox, Apple, and Bitstream digital fonts, and to some extent the TrueType fonts we all now know and love, and products like XYwrite, Pagemaker and Microsoft Publisher. Now you know why typesetting and page makeup programs have an entirely different approach than do text processing programs and Web page languages. They have different heritage. So, the next time you have to solve a formatting problem in Word, think of how much more complex it would be in Tex or troff! (but then, you would have more control, if you could ever get it to work!) ###### From: writer1@sabu.EBay.Sun.COM (Bob Morrisette) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query: Script Date: 26 Jul 1999 22:43:29 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc. Lines: 18 Distribution: world Message-ID: <7nioah$ptv$1@ebaynews1.EBay.Sun.COM> References: Reply-To: writer1@sabu.EBay.Sun.COM NNTP-Posting-Host: sabu.ebay.sun.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!iol.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!207.172.3.37!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!lsanca1-snf1!crtntx1-snh1.gtei.net!denver-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!namche.sun.com!ebaynews1.EBay.Sun.COM!sabu!writer1 From "John Carpenter" Script info deleted >So, the next time you have to solve a formatting problem in Word, think of >how much more complex it would be in Tex or troff! (but then, you would >have more control, if you could ever get it to work!) Any markup language is a major headache to use. Word is used mostly by writing departments whose top mamagement has ordered it. Most departments doing long documents use FrameMaker, a very powerful tool. Bob Morrisette ###### From: andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Documentation query Date: 29 Jul 1999 20:38:34 GMT Organization: home Message-ID: <7nqe4a$fq@cucumber.demon.co.uk> References: <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: cucumber X-NNTP-Posting-Host: cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 933282218 nnrp-09:15600 NO-IDENT cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.6 Lines: 32 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!cucumber.demon.co.uk!usenet In article <7n8qib$toi$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes: > >There are many more books on TeX than troff. _The TeXbook_ and _TeX: The >Program_ by Donald Knuth are the definitive manual and source code, >respectively. I also like _TeX by Topic_ by Victor Eijkhout. All of those >will give you a feeling for TeX's strengths and for how TeX differs from >troff. If you want to know about TeX' weaknesses, you'll have to check out >comp.text.tex. Their FAQ also has a list of more books. > >For troff, look for old books in libraries, or see the BSD manuals or Dennis >Ritchie's home page or the Plan 9 home page or the comp.text FAQ. The best troff manual I came across was Sun's manual, probably around SunOS 2 (or maybe early SunOS 3). The only catch was it covered otroff and we had bought and built the [di]troff source (AT&T's Documentors' Workbench) but most of the commands were the same. I wish I still had that manual. I have the AT&T manuals, and they are remarkably pathetic. >Definitely troff came first. It's still very good for manpages and >straightforward documents. I'd learn it for those reasons. > >I like pic too. I loved pic, and grap too (a pic preprocessor for producing graphs). -- Andrew Gabriel Consultant Software Engineer