8 Nov
2022
8 Nov
'22
10:42 p.m.
At 2022-11-07T23:12:40+0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
The following papers stick out to me as papers that
haven't surfaced
in any of the research I've done (not exhaustive, but what stuck out
to me):
Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language
- This sounds fun, not hard UNIX info, but fun
The infamous CSTR #100. :D It has been in circulation as a while,
though the copy I have has been stripped of its CSTR identifier and the
header margin is suspiciously short for an ms(7) paper.
A Typesetter-Independent TROFF
- A ditroff-specific paper? Can't say I've seen such a thing,
would be interested in this one.
That's CSTR #97, also well-known, albeit not as well known as it should
be by people who regard CSTR #54 (1992 revision) as Torah. #97 is
surely Taldmudic.
I know someone (can't recall name/email) in the
GROFF mailing list
seemed particularly excited about ditroff information that could be
gleaned from the UNIX/TS 4.0 docs, this may be their golden carrot.
That was me. The golden carrot would be the [nt]roff source from that
release. Someone pointed me in the direction of McKusick's CSRG CD-ROM
archives for that, but I haven't made the time to chase it down. I'm
trying to eat my vegetables first and get a groff release out. We're
closing in on 400 bugs fixed since 1.22.4...
PIC - A Graphics Language for Typesetting
- The list mentions a March 1982 revision. This would post-date
the UNIX/TS 4.0 version, although there is the Research V10
version of the paper. However, an initial flip through the V10
Volume 2 manual reveals no specific last-modify date. That would
ultimately trace back to
https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V8/usr/doc/pic . I
can't find the roff sources for V9 or V10 of this paper though,
I've just got the physical book for V10.
I'm envious, if you have both bound volumes of the V10 manuals.
groff's pic.ms document (identifying Eric Raymond as author, although I
believe it understates its debt to the above document, CSTR #116) muses
about a "pre-ditroff" version of pic, but I have never encountered any
evidence that any such thing existed. The \D drawing command escape
sequences did not exist in Ossanna's troff; see the line 601 switch() in
<https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/src/cmd/troff/n1.c>.
The PIC Graphics Language
- Another PIC paper?
I'm curious to see any variant documentation of pic, particularly its
early versions.
Writing Tools - The STYLE and DICTION Programs
- Ditto, I'd be curious how much of what became trade-book WWB/DWB
documentation started as Bell memoranda and if a full manual could
be compiled from just memoranda.
I share your interest in WWB-related documents.
In case there's anyone who's not already aware of this, the Internet
Archive has a very nice cache of documents formerly hosted at
cs.bell-labs.com.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080509085821/http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/c…
I find the refer(1) database of _all_ CSTR document numbers to be of
particular interest.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080509085821/http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/c…
Regards,
Branden