[TUHS] Original print of V7 manual?

[segaloco via TUHS]

Alright here's some commentary on and pictures of key pieces (I'll make reference to USG/PWB stuff in here too, but don't have pictures, 4.0 and 5.0/System V docs are scanned, variations on System III docs as well, can point those out to you if needed):

> * Vol 2a doc 8, "Typing Documents on the UNIX System", M. E. Lesk: the
> last page of this paper exhibits a "Figure 1" drawing that appears to
> have been done literally by hand ...
> ... this hand drawing appears on page 346. Does it look exactly
> the same in V7 original?

https://i.imgur.com/CiUz01n.jpg - V7 left, 4.2BSD right
https://i.imgur.com/i8uxEbv.jpg - V7 revised left, V7 right

The V7 and 4.2BSD pages are closer than the V7 and V7 HRW Revised edition.  Most noticeably there is some schmutz there around RP that is in both V7 and 4.2BSD, but not the HRW version.

This paper is not in the USG/PWB 3.0 and onward stuff, MM is fully entrenched as the standard macro package in that lineage.  There is a Typing Documents with MM but this is a little foldout reference card.

> * Vol 2a doc 12, "NROFF/TROFF User's Manual", J. F. Ossanna - please
> look at the following details:
> 
> - in Table I (Font Style Examples), is the square character hollow in
> all 3 fonts (like in 4.2BSD print), or is it filled in bold or in any
> other font?
> 
> - the two pointing hand characters in Special Mathematical Font, do
> they look exactly the same between V7 and 4.2BSD?

https://i.imgur.com/k3OflK4.jpg - 4.2BSD left, V7 right
https://i.imgur.com/ZBPj8kK.jpg - V7 left, V7 revised right

Nothing really jumps out at me as significantly different.  The smaller pressing on the Usenix stuff makes some of the busier characters (e.g. copyright) look pretty filled in, but this may not represent a difference in exposures of original plates.  The pointing characters are likely the same, but the smaller pressing makes it quite difficult to see the cuffs clearly, in my physical copy of 4.2BSD it's barely intelligible that there's a cuff on the left hand.

For the record, the System III's Table 1 looks pretty shoddy, like a several generations removed photocopy of the V7 version.  Release 4.0's table I think reflects Bell's shift into ditroff territory, as it has wholly new fonts, and now the Special Mathematical Font is noted as prepared by Wang Laboratories, Inc. rather than Graphic Systems, Inc., reflecting the purchase of GSI by Wang.  The System V document drops this font table entirely.

> * Vol 2a doc 13, "A TROFF Tutorial", B. W. Kernighan: is there a final
> page titled "Appendix A: Phototypesetter Character Set" ... missing in
> both 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD prints from Usenix.
> 
> - If this Appendix A page is included, how does \(sq look? Is it
> hollow in the main table but filled in bold, or is hollow in both
> places? (Or something else?)

https://i.imgur.com/cDpAXTS.jpg - V7 single shot
https://i.imgur.com/iHKuuYE.jpg - V7 left, V7 revised right

Bold square is filled, regular is hollow in both printings.  Nothing I can spot that really tells them apart.

The story is the the same with System III, just a kinda fuzzier later generation from the same plate.  Gotta remind myself anything being distributed in earnest as "System III" is a few years down the line from V7, probably not worth it to try and go find the plates and make really clean copies again.  The page in Release 4.0 is revamped, and also reflects the new font, along with additional characters and details, although the square fill/no-fill is the same.  I can't find a section of the System V Document Processing Guide that resembles A TROFF Tutorial, that specific paper may not be represented in documentation after 4.0.

> * Vol 2a doc 16, "Make - A Program for Maintaining Computer Programs",
> S. I. Feldman: first of all, do page breaks line up perfectly between
> V7 and 4.2BSD prints? If they do, please look at the top of page
> labeled "- 6 -": there is a drawing that was apparently done by hand,
> similarly to the one in the -ms document, although this one is a bit
> simpler. Does it look like the drawing in 4.2BSD version is exactly
> the same as in V7?

https://i.imgur.com/ZihxD0P.jpg - V7 left, 4.2BSD right

Nothing noticeably different, same is true with V7 revised, didn't bother to take a picture.

Same in System III.  Release 4.0 once again is changed with the new typesetter.  This changes yet again in System V.  Here's a picture since this is the one of that lot not scanned yet: https://i.imgur.com/C0Hm9DO.jpeg

> * Vol 2b doc 31, "UNIX Implementation", K. Thompson: does it look
> exactly the same between V7 and 4.2BSD? Do all page breaks line up?
> There is Fig 1 on page 2 and Fig 2 on page 8 - do they look the same
> between the two prints?

https://i.imgur.com/fpYnC0S.jpg - Fig. 1, V7 left, 4.2BSD right
https://i.imgur.com/KfZbhSB.jpg - Fig. 2, Same Arrangement

No noticeable difference, same is true of the HRW volumes.

I only have System III Volume 2A, this is a 2B paper so can't vouch for it, although there's a Plexus System III Volume 2B on bitsavers that I believe contains papers that are also BTL typesetting exposures, just packed in with some fluff from Plexus.  These diagrams do appear to be revamped for Release 4.0, and like A TROFF Tutorial I don't think there's a variation on this paper included with the System V set.  It's a bit complicated with those since they in some cases broke down the barriers between different documents, merged them together, dropped some pieces, added some others...etc, the transformation from Release 4.0 to System V pretty much brought an end to the conventional papers format and ushered in the style of the commercial era literature.

> Finally, in Volume 1 - how does eqnchar(7) page look in the original
> V7 version? The version in 4.2BSD print was clearly retroffed anew,
> as the date in the footer is 1983 - so I wonder how the original V7
> version looked. Is the "blot" character a black filled square, or is
> it something else? Are "square" and "circle" just above it both
> hollow?

https://i.imgur.com/bpolKEF.jpg - 4.2BSD left, V7 right
https://i.imgur.com/QmaqCe0.jpg - V7 left, V7 HRW right

The V7 and 4.2BSD material appears to originate from the same plate, although the V7 and V7 revised are noticeably different.  For instance, note the change in size of the blot square.

Goodness gracious did the situation lead to a little rabbit hole with the USG/PWB line:

https://i.imgur.com/NH4hk8c.jpeg - 3.0 left, 4.1 middle, 5.0 right
https://i.imgur.com/xVQVOMu.jpeg - System V (DEC, 3B20) left, System V (3B5) middle, SVR2 (HRW) right

So Release 3.0 looks a lot like the original V7 stuff, but then into 4.1 and 5.0, instead you see the larger blot symbol and addition of scrL, among other differences.  However, both System V documents, while having for instance the addition of scrL, *also* have the smaller blot symbol that hasn't been in this documentation line since probably 3.0.  This isn't the only thing like this, for instance the System V variants refer to a "UNIX (System) User Guide" but then the Release (i.e. internal) stuff has "UNIX (System) User's Guide".  There are other such very, very minor discrepancies between the USG internal releases and the published System V stuff, almost as if they technically split earlier and were just cross-pollinating since, but what strikes me as odd is 4.1 does get the updated blot character, so System V not having it was either a regression in the document typesetting *or* evidence that whatever became the System V eqnchar(5) page shares a separate branch point from 3.0 than that seen in 4.1 and 5.0.  Speculation though, can't say for sure, it's just...odd...

Finally, you'll note that the page in the HRW book is goofed, none of the characters are actually there, just a copy of the string invoking them.  Whoops, it happens.

> What was the physical form of this book?  Was it a "perfect bound"
> book?  Comb binding like BSD books?  Or was it just a 3-ring binder
> which anyone could open and add/remove pages easily?

Here are some angled shots of some of these books, some of the stuff scans and cover pictures don't really catch:

https://i.imgur.com/tQ7wP80.jpeg - V7 HRW
https://i.imgur.com/plKh9Ji.jpeg - 4.2BSD Usenix (Not first editions, those apparently had white combs?)
https://i.imgur.com/0ONBep9.jpeg - System III Volume 2A and Release 4.0 Starter Packages
https://i.imgur.com/hM7F0R4.jpeg - System V various bindings

Anything research V7 and back was largely just papers in ringed binders or report covers.  I've seen some pictures of literature in Bell Labs report covers  of similar motif to the Release 3.0 manual cover (Saul Bass logo, blue/yellow stripe) with a window to see the titlepage through.  Dunno if that was something commonly done or just someone's copy for their desk they put together with available covers.  V8 was a comb bound manual, V9 appears to be a hard cover (Doug M. sent me a cover scan for the wiki), and external V10 at least were perfect bound.

BSD documentation was largely similar to research documentation until the Usenix run.  There were a limited number of 4.1BSD documents printed on both blank-covered and Bell Labs-covered comb-bound media for a particular Bell Labs group, these also include the Marx supplement.  Other folks here can probably tell you oodles more about that stuff.  4.2 is then the start of the Usenix manuals, although it is also quite common for loose/binder distribution at this time as well, same for 4.3BSD.  That compsci lounge bookshelf has a few 4.3BSD binders that look old enough, they've got that V7 volume 2 keeping them company now.  Finally, 4.4BSD documents were perfect bound by O'Reilly.

I believe at least some USG Program Generic documentation was comb bound in the 70s.  The only specimen I know of is a document describing the kernel routines in Program Generic II.  Available CB-UNIX documentation appears to be papers in binders.  Early PWB I'm fairly certain was also distributed like this, although I have some curiosity if the publication quality improved somewhat with PWB 2.0 as there is a quite nice bibliography document from around that time with a nicely made cover in maroon with the Saul Bass logo among other things.  If a bibliography got such nice treatment, maybe the manuals handed out to employees did as well, but I wasn't there.

PWB 3.0, which drops the PWB to become Release 3.0, is then when comb bound is the norm for manuals from USG.  However, at this time the supplementary papers are still typically just loose pages in a report cover or binder.  As seen above, when WECo goes to distribute this commercially, the secondary volumes were bound in report covers.  The large Release 4.0 documentation set was similarly two volumes of papers, but Bell Labs also cut a smaller subset of the documents in the form of two "Starter Packages" geared towards programmers and typists respectively.  These as you can see are the large form but comb bound, something I don't think I've seen with other Bell System UNIX stuff.  I quite like this format, if I had to travel with these documents this format is what I'd pack in my luggage.

Getting on to Release 5.0 and System V, these also featured comb-bound manuals, although the supporting literature was distributed in a few different formats.  From the picture above you can see that they shipped binders, perfect bound books (with 7 holes punched in them Bell style), and papers in report covers.  Of all the materials, the papers in the report covers look the most "TROFF-ish", the rest are very BSP-ish.  For the 3B5 release of System V, WECo opted towards small three ring binders instead, a trend that would continue into SVR2.  Internal to Bell Labs, their expanded manual was also a comb-bound issue for System V, just with a different cover, but the BTL issue of SVR2 features a completely different binder, down to the rings, plastic, etc. not even sourced from the same kind as the ones out in the world.  Still it was a binder, something that would continue with the red SVR2 and SVR3 binders distributed with ATTIS products.

Finally, Bell has some other perfect bound stuff in that the revised V7 manual discussed here is of course bound this way (also with the punched holes, only three of them though) as well as the HRW 5 volume SVR2 set (the one with the metalic alphabet block cover.)  There are then SVR3 and SVR4 perfect bound manuals, the former being generally grey with a colorful globe picture bearing "UNIX" in the middle with lines going all over the globe from it, while the latter start off as a series of blue books with a globe and big gold "V" and UNIX superimposed on it.  Later SVR4 stuff transitioned to a series of solid color covers and then on to white covers with some small landscape picture (SVR4.2 era pretty sure.)  There are other odds and ends but that covers a good chunk of what I'm aware of.

> TIA for all this scrutiny,
> Your resident troff nut Mychaela

Oh I think we've got a few of those :)

By the way, this is lots of stuff, thanks for bearing with me, I saw this as an opportunity to attempt to summarize much of what I've learned the past few years about how all of this documentation was produced and presented.  That said, I may have parts of the story inaccurate as again, I wasn't there, so apologies for any misrepresentations and corrections to the record are welcome and encouraged!

Finally, just because it's worth pointing out, here's comparisons of the binder V7 set covers vs published V7 set covers:

Vol 1: https://i.imgur.com/kJ3LcjH.jpg
Vol 2: https://i.imgur.com/rdjnrkP.jpg

Whew.  I'm tapped out.  If you have any further questions I'll probably chit chat 1 on 1 but figured it might be good to tie all these threads together in a message on list, especially so I can be corrected, I'm a secondary source after all.

- Matt G.