[COFF] [TUHS] troff.org and the old bell-labs.com domain

[Steffen Nurpmeso via COFF]

Bakul Shah via TUHS wrote in
 <A4873851-F73D-4FED-BE9C-401D7DC678C1 at iitbombay.org>:
 |On May 23, 2026, at 7:49 AM, Warner Losh via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
 |Étienne Ghys puts Knuth in the company of Gutenburg, Pacioli, Da Vinci.

Gutenberg.

 |Only time will tell but we can be sure that a Tex/LaTeX document created
 |today will still produce the same output 100 years from now.
 |
 |https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1319/showcase-of-beautiful-typog\
 |raphy-done-in-tex-friends
 |
 |https://tug.org/texshowcase/
 |
 |Ghys - The Shape of Letters: From Leonardo Da Vinci to Donald Knuth
 |https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OIxzewWilc

The n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools at github can use the same layout
algorithm; or .. there was a big thing (issue) saying "Add
typographical enhancements for paragraph composition and letter
adjustment" in 2017, so it possibly is even better.  (I am only
tracking it, i stopped using it before; anything that is, i only
write some letters for which i have simple macros, and i use an
elder groff that "can" the mdoc enhancements i wrote.)
Btw one can do

  .als ALIAS als
  .ALIAS STRING ds
  .STRING B \\fB\\$*\\fP

and then say \*[B bold text] inline.  Should be nice on american
keyboard.  And other than that, as soon as references, anchors,
index entries etc come into play, everything gets sick.  Here some
TeX from 2000-05-31:

  \open{section}[subsec:refs]
  \title{Cross--References}
  \close{section}

  The cross--references are built very similar to the way described in
  \ref{sec:tocs}, which means they allow a very flexible way of formatting
  themselves. However, this time this can be configured by only five (5) macros.

  \mli[start] \mac|\setRefPrefersTocTitle{X}|
     \idx{1~~Macros~~Cross--References~~\setRefPrefersTocTitle}%
     \idx{1~~(Ungrouped) Macros~~\setRefPrefersTocTitle}%
  can be set to the usual \var|\TRUE| or \var|\FALSE| (\val|\TRUE|). It defines--
  assumed you've used the \mac|\toctxt| macro as described in
     \idx{1~~Macros~~Sectioning~~\toctxt}%
     \idx{1~~(Ungrouped) Macros~~\toctxt}%
  \ref{sec:sectioning:toctxt} --if the content of this element should be used
  instead of the content of the sectioning title.

All lost.  But compare with nice roff letter:

  .\"ds DBG
  .mso s-letter.tmac
  .mso s-hw_german.tmac
  .LETTER
  .
  .BODY
  .SENDER
  Steffen
  ...
  Darmstadt
  .SENDER END
  .SENDERMEDIA
  Web:\t...
  Mail:\t...
  Phone:\t+49 ...
  .SENDERMEDIA END
  .
  .RECEIVER
  Firma
  ...
  GmbH & Co. KG
  z. Hd. Frau ...

  58123 Hagen
  .RECEIVER END
  .
  .DATE "......2005"
  .SUBJECT "Danke"
  .TITLELINE_SUBJECT "Danke"
  .GREETING
  Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
  sehr geehrte Frau ...,

  vielen Dank für ,,die Entschädigung für meine Unannehmlichkeiten``.
  Damit hatte ich gar nicht gerechnet,
  und es wäre auch wirklich nicht nötig gewesen \*[---]
  lecker war das Zeug aber trotzdem,
  und zwar gänzlich,
  insbesondere aber die Schokoladen-Zwiebäcke und die Biscotte,
  da die ,,Milch-Minis`` \*[EM doch] extrem süß und fett sind.
  (Unter uns: um wieder auf einen ausgeglichenen Kalorienstand zu kommen,
  werde ich mir eine Woche lang mein morgendliches Croissant vom Bäcker
  verkneifen müssen.
  Argh!)

  ...
  Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
  .
  .BODY END

It is unfair.  Nothing compared to Gutenberg, from Mainz, not
far away from here.  All those little letters.  And lead is also
poisoning.  Just a couple of days ago i had read that americans in
the past -- time span covering the members of this list! -- lost
5 points IQ because of lead water pipes!  All of you!
By sheer luck that is a thing of the past.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)