23 Mar
2024
23 Mar
'24
3:37 p.m.
"BI" fonts can, it seems, largely be traced
to the impact
of PostScript
There was no room for BI on the C/A/T. It appeared in
troff upon the taming of the Linotron 202, just after v7
and five years before PostScript.
Seventh Edition Unix shipped a tc(1) command to help
you preview your troff output with that device before you
spent precious departmental money sending it to the
actual typesetter.
Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing
with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a
lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014.
Doug
23 Mar
23 Mar
4:03 p.m.
New subject: the Courier font family and nroff history
The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce:
"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often."
On Mar 23, 2024, at 11:37 AM, Douglas McIlroy
<douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing
with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a
lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014.
5:08 p.m.
New subject: the Courier font family and nroff history
Bill Cheswick:
The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce:
"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often."
Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this.
The actual announcement was
Help! Please add goo!
The suffix was applied to a different message:
Please add toner. You won't have to very often.
`Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up.
Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which.
Other messages included
Please add paper.
Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it?
Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now!
All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the
local code that controlled the 202.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
8:56 p.m.
New subject: the Courier font family and nroff history
Don't forget the Imagen's
Where is the paper tray?
in a mechanical exasperated intonation.
-rob
On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 4:08 AM Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org> wrote:
Bill Cheswick:
The Unix room text-to-speech device used to
announce:
"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often."
Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this.
The actual announcement was
Help! Please add goo!
The suffix was applied to a different message:
Please add toner. You won't have to very often.
`Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up.
Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which.
Other messages included
Please add paper.
Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it?
Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now!
All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the
local code that controlled the 202.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
25 Mar
25 Mar
7:15 p.m.
New subject: the Courier font family and nroff history
i work with tom, and he claims that he (tom) did the imagen messaging stuff.
i sill don’’t know who did the 202 handler code, even tho i was
the designated main handler of the paper and goo for the 202.
On Mar 23, 2024, at 10:08 AM, Norman Wilson
<norman(a)oclsc.org> wrote:
Bill Cheswick:
The Unix room text-to-speech device used to
announce:
"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often."
Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this.
The actual announcement was
Help! Please add goo!
The suffix was applied to a different message:
Please add toner. You won't have to very often.
`Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up.
Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which.
Other messages included
Please add paper.
Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it?
Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now!
All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the
local code that controlled the 202.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON 
23 Mar
23 Mar
4:36 p.m.
New subject: the Courier font family and nroff history
[looping the groff list back in]
At 2024-03-23T11:37:51-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
Thanks, Doug! I'm pleased to be corrected here.
The scars on my waist from crashing dot-com startup "belt-tightening"
must be showing...the great thing about recurring expenses, no matter
how small, is that you can issue edicts about them and Be Seen To Be
Doing Something...
One source says that the Tektronix 4014 listed (at some point during its
sales life) at $8,450, though the Computer Museum of Amsterdam has much
higher estimates (albeit without tying their dollar figures to a
calendar year, which increases the fuzz even more).
Still, USD 8,450 in 1979 is over USD 36,000 today.[1]
Do you happen to remember _when_ the CSRC got its 4014? About what
year? Did Joe Ossanna have access to one early enough to use it in aid
of troff development? (I don't see a man page for tc(1) in the Sixth
Edition manual.)
Something else I'm not clear on is whether staff had Teletype terminals
in their personal offices (before the Blit), or if people _had_ to go to
the Unix room to use the system. (Steve Johnson has a wonderful story
of how DMR faithfully used a Model 37 at home long after its vogue years
until mechanical wear combined with the Unix CLI's unforgiving nature
finally proved too much even for him...)[2]
Even after reading many reminiscences of (1)127 life, including
Kernighan's recent memoir, I admit that my fanciful reconstructions of
it are likely as naturalistic as that time Banksy took over the
Simpsons' couch gag to depict daily life in Korean animation studios...
As always I appreciate your patience with the febrile notions of a guy
who Wasn't There.
Regards,
Branden
[1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
[2]
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/message/ESWN…
"BI"
fonts can, it seems, largely be traced to the impact
of PostScript
There was no room for BI on the C/A/T. It appeared in
troff upon the taming of the Linotron 202, just after v7
and five years before PostScript. Seventh
Edition Unix shipped a tc(1) command to help you preview
your troff output with that device before you spent precious
departmental money sending it to the actual typesetter.
Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing
with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a
lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014.
43
days inactive
45
days old
6 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
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Andrew Hume -
Douglas McIlroy -
G. Branden Robinson -
Norman Wilson -
Rich Salz -
Rob Pike -
William Cheswick