[TUHS] pic macros

[George Michaelson via TUHS]

We got the ditroff tape distinct from our 4.2bsd tape for Leeds uni, 1982-3
time frames. Somebody local did driver work for a versatec printer we had.
Odd wet xerography style printing on continuous paper with cut marks
printed in as it did pages. I think it was 200dpi or worse, I have a
printout somewhere set on it in old English font. (The solvent evaporated
as you walked up to get your printout)

G

On Thu, 8 Jan 2026, 7:50 am Warren Toomey via TUHS, <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson at gmail.com>
> Sent: 8 January 2026 7:14:38 am AEST
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Cc: wkt at tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Re: pic macros
>
> [CCing Warren so he can forward if necessary; as far as I know the
> Gmail->TUHS relationship is still sour, at least for me]
>
> At 2026-01-07T15:19:13-0500, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 1:53 PM Douglas McIlroy via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> > wrote:
> > > I haven't found pic in the TUHS v7 source tree. Does anyone have a
> > > running version of it?
> > >
> > That's because it was not released in V7.
>
> As someone who definitely Wasn't There but has done a little research,
> I'd venture that pic wasn't yet _finished_ in time for V7.
>
> CSTR #97, "A Typesetter-Independent TROFF", by Kernighan, documents the
> process of creating same.  See §7, "Graphics Commands", where he
> introduces the `\D` troff escape sequence upon which pic relies as a
> translation target.  Writing in 1982, Kernighan says:
>
> "Since actual output is done by a post-processor, not TROFF, new
> capabilities for graphics have been easy to add.  TROFF now recognizes
> commands for drawing diagonal lines, circles, ellipses, circular arcs,
> and quadratic B-splines; these are used in the PIC[...] and IDEAL[...]
> languages." (p. 2; PS/PDF p. 4)
>
> > (ditroff was part of the later "toolchest" ditroff distributions; it
> > might have been part of the original ditroff for the v6/v7 release
> > that included the new C compiler)
>
> If I understand the history correctly, it would certainly have had to
> have been backported to those Unices; V7 is dated 1979, and Kernighan
> reports his work on what came to be known as "ditroff" in "early 1979"
> per CSTR #97.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>
> --
> Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.