[TUHS] My own version of troff

Mychaela Falconia falcon at freecalypso.org
Mon Jan 8 07:59:20 AEST 2024


Hello fellow lovers of old UNIX,

After almost 20 y of intermittent development (started in the fall of
2004), I just made the first official release of my version of troff:

https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.Z
https://www.freecalypso.org/pub/UNIX/components/troff/qjtroff-r1.tar.gz

(The .Z is the native format; the .gz is for greater accessibility.)

The README file inside the tarball gives the full story, but basically
it is my own derivative from classic V7 troff (not derived from
ditroff, and certainly not groff) that runs under 4.3BSD and emits
PostScript.  Only PS output is supported, no non-PS targets of ditroff.
I started it in 2004, but I still use it to this day (on a real
MicroVAX running my "organically grown" 4.3BSD variant) to write
various TPS reports and technical manuals etc, for my other projects
that don't have much of anything to do with Ancient UNIX.

For anyone who loves intricacies of troff and/or PostScript, you might
find the source code quite interesting to study. :)

Some Time Soon I am hoping to put out my PostScript reprint of the
first 3 books of the 4.3BSD manual set (namely, URM, USD and PRM books)
made with this troff.  The actual book reformatting job is already done
(for these 3 books, not for the other 3 yet), but I need to write new
colophons to be appended (with pstmerge, a tool from my troff suite)
at the end of each book.  (The colophons I wrote for URM and PRM back
in 2012 are in need of corrections and updates, and I didn't have the
USD book done in 2012.)

I will also be responding to BSW's detailed account of V7 PDF reprint
in the other thread shortly - but I wanted to get this troff release
out first, so I won't be in a position of saying "please look at my
creation" when that creation is not publicly accessible.

M~


More information about the TUHS mailing list