8 Oct
2024
8 Oct
'24
5:24 p.m.
Branden:
8 hours of my time, not computer time.
The faculty member started this in 1988, and we (the department) did not have access to
much in the way of visual previewing. He was an EE by training, and really latched onto
Unix, vi, troff, etc. At the time we were running a series of AT&T 3B2/5, and a 3B20.
My wife was sysadmin and I was on the faculty. We had a large number of faculty and
staff using troff for editing and publishing. I remember my wife teaching Unix and Troff
to faculty. We did have a few of the AT&T graphics terminal (I cannot remember the
model number) Another fun thing, I used troff and vi (on a different) system to write my
Ph.D. in 1985.
I will reach out to you about the files etc. He is the copyright holder. His health is
not good, and his family with the help of a former student is the one hoping to get it
published.
Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2024 5:50 AM
To: Jacobson, Doug W [E CPE] <dougj(a)iastate.edu>
Cc: tuhs(a)tuhs.org; groff(a)gnu.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Re: Old troff files (1988-2007)
[dropped Clem and Leah from CC]
Hi Doug,
At 2024-10-08T10:33:35+0000, Jacobson, Doug W [E CPE] wrote:
Using Groff (eqn+pic) + grap I was able to create a
PDF of the book.
It took about 8 hours
8-O
part of which was figuring out the syntax differences.
Oh, wall clock time including human engagement. That sounds really reasonable! I'm
not sure I want to estimate how many hours I've put into revising groff's own
documentation. Or ncurses's.
Eight hours processing time on a modern machine (without inflooping) would be shocking to
me.
He had divided the book up into a file for each page
or two, so 100+
files. I think he did that, so he did not waste paper since he had to
print out the pages to see if they looked right, no display to view
them.
No PostScript or PDF preview program? I can think of a few: mupdf, evince, okular. Deri
James (groff developer) can probably name a dozen.
It was not perfect but is good enough for the
publisher to review.
The book is on filters (EE book) and is full of graphs, circuits, and
equations. He used pic to draw the circuits, which was amazing. This
was fun to take a forgotten manuscript written by a colleague and with
luck maybe getting it published while he is still alive. If the
publisher wants to publish it, I'm not sure how they will handle troff
files :)
If you'd care to share it with me in my capacity as groff maintainer, I'd be
interested to use it for unofficial regression testing.
Alternatively, if you can't find an interested publisher, please consider asking the
author (I assume he's also the copyright holder) to release it under a Creative
Commons license so the whole world can enjoy. Also, so I can selfishly enjoy the pleasure
of pointing to a sophisticated typeset work and saying, "look what groff can
do!" ;-)
(Just in case people aren't impressed enough with K&R or W. Richard
Stevens.)
Regards,
Branden