28 Nov
2018
28 Nov
'18
11:22 a.m.
On 11/28/18 3:57 AM, Larry McVoy wrote:
(*) I know that nroff was "new run off" and
it came from somewhere,
MIT? Some old system, but it wasn't invented in Unix. That said,
I've never seen docs for the previous system and I kinda think Joe
took it to the next level. If you haven't studied the docs and
written macros, you should. It's a pretty neat system.
Kristaps Dzonsons actually went digging for that as part of his "History
of UNIX Manpages" essay[1]. The abridged version is that roff goes back
to a number of rewrites, the original being apparently RUNOFF on CTSS at
MIT. Source code for RUNOFF and documentation for various parts of
troff history have been preserved on that page. It looks
well-researched, though I have no knowledge first hand.
[1] https://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html