[TUHS] early Unix papers, from Jim Joyce
G. Branden Robinson
g.branden.robinson at gmail.com
Wed Nov 9 02:42:20 AEST 2022
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/cs/cstr.html
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/cs/cstr/bib
Regards,
Branden
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