[TUHS] Anachronistic verisimilitude at cat-v.org

[sl via TUHS]

> On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 10:58 PM Douglas McIlroy <
> douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> 
>> The display on page 2 of
>>  https://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf
>> is explainable, but may be mystifying to readers who
>> know backspace only as an editing convenience, not a
>> printing action.
>>
>> Doug
> 
> I don't own that page, but clearly those who do did not understand col(1).
> I'll forward this to tuhs to see if anyone there knows who can fix it.
> 
> -rob

i inherited cat-v.org from uriel when he passed away in 2012.  i have
postscript but no troff source for the original paper.  over the years
i've discovered multiple problems with the document.

back in 2013 i wrote to bwk:

	Page 4 of the pdf version, the paragraph that begins with "The answer
	is 'No.'" contains lines such as:
	
		cat's job is to the data in files
	
	and:
	
		Programs that collect data shouldn't the data
	
	Amusing, but presumably not intentional. There are other examples
	of apparently missing words throughout the file.
	
bwk confirmed that nobody seemed to have the source, and copied rob on
the reply.  since the source was presumed lost, i examined the version
published in the BLTJ, and reported:

	The printed version from BLTJ had also lost some characters during
	its journey from source to print. Specifically, the backquotes from
	the example on page 3:
	
		cat `cat filelist`
	
	The italics missing from my copy were intact in this version.
	
	Today, a friend located a postscript version that seems to have
	retained all of the missing pieces: 
	
	http://netlib.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/84/kp.ps.gz

this version addressed the problems i'd originally noticed but now
exhibits the problems doug noted above.

everyone stopped responding to me at this point, and in the subsequent
years i have failed to recreate the entire document by re-typing it.

sl