Re: [groff] Design and Implementation of *roff

[John Gardner]

> So, if you are using a Unix/Linux system with standard
> man-pages, on a command-line terminal enter:
> man sex
> and see what you get!

I've been down this road once beefore the first time I had to write `man
finger`... =)

On Mon, 3 Dec 2018 at 05:52, Ted Harding <address@hidden> wrote:

> One thing that does not seem to have been mentioned so far
> (or perhaps I have overlooked it) is the role of roff
> (abbreviation of "runoff", to reduce key-strokes) in
> the emergence of Unix itself.
>
> Unix was not originally developed by Bell Labs (as a
> corporation) but by a group of Bell Labs people working
> "on the side" to develop a simpler and better version of
> the Bell Labs operating system Multics. These included
> Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna.
> When they finally got it working, Bell Labs was not interested
> in adopting it. So, happily inspired, they developed the
> text-formatter runoff (--> roff) on Unix, and then
> demonstrated to Bell Labs how good it was at formatting
> structured documents -- in particular legal documents.
> At this point Bell Labs woke up, and adopted Unix!
>
> Without roff, Unix might well have disappeared.
>
> I think man-pages came later (now that roff could
> easily format their structured layout).
>
> Best wishes to all,
> Ted.
>
> PS: Unix of course teems with abbreviations, such as
> "roff" for "runoff", "ls" for "list", "mv" for "move",
> etc., including "man" for "manual". This provides many
> opportunities for interesting experiments with language.
> So, if you are using a Unix/Linux system with standard
> man-pages, on a command-line terminal enter:
>   man sex
> and see what you get!
>
>
> On Sun, 2018-12-02 at 11:36 -0500, Yves Cloutier wrote:
> > Hi Dave, thanks for this link!
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 7:27 AM Dave Bucklin <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I just came across this on Reddit. It seems relevant.
> > >
> > > http://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html
> > >
>
>
>