Hi Jonathan, At 2025-07-13T12:45:30+1000, Jonathan Gray wrote: > > I'm not sure about that reference to "Berkeley troff". I already > > deleted the modifier "device-independent" from that sentence because > > I've never seen even a whisper of evidence that the CSRG ever > > distributed Kernighan's device-independent troff; that was locked up > > behind AT&T's revenue-seeking aims. > > from the Berkeley manual:
...which one? Is the one you're referencing archived at minnie? Or do you mean the man page listed below as "grn.1"? > grn - ditroff preprocessor for gremlin files > > more on the Berkeley ditroff distribution below Indeed! I knew about vtroff but not about a Berkeley fork of Kernighan troff. This is significant news to me, and adds a whole new branch onto the troff family tree in my head. > grn(1) can be found in CD 4 of the CSRG archives. > Along with various .grn files. > > from tuhs Documentation/CSRG_CDs/csrg_ls.gz: > > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 5757 May 9 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/docs/grn.1 > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 356 Jul 5 1995 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/.MAP > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 468 Dec 27 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/Makefile > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 235 Jul 5 1995 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/.MAP > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 2037 Oct 8 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/s.gprint.h > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 9899 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/s.hdb.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 19497 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/s.hgraph.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1028 Oct 8 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/s.hpoint.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 40419 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/SCCS/s.main.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1228 Nov 11 1985 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/dev.h > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1904 Dec 7 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/gprint.h > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 5677 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/hdb.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 10982 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/hgraph.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 895 Dec 7 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/hpoint.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 22630 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.okeeffe/grn/main.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 5757 May 9 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/docs/grn.1 > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 314 Jul 5 1995 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/.MAP > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 468 Dec 27 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/Makefile > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1228 Nov 11 1985 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/dev.h > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1904 Dec 7 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/gprint.h > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 5677 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/hdb.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 10982 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/hgraph.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 895 Dec 7 1984 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/hpoint.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 22630 Apr 14 1986 > CSRG/disk4/local/ditroff/ditroff.old.van/grn/main.c > -r--r--r-- 1 root root 5757 Oct 10 1986 CSRG/disk4/local/man/man1/grn.1 I didn't think to look there. > The SCCS logs start in 1983, authored by slatteng. > > The troff preprocessor is also mentioned in > > Mark Opperman, Jim Thompson, Yih-Farn Chen > A Gremlin Tutorial for the SUN Workstation > UCB/CSD 322 > https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1987/CSD-87-322.pdf > > "1.1 GREMLIN History > GREMLIN's legacy encompasses more than five years and a half-dozen > Berkeley graduate students. It all started in 1981 when Barry Roitblat > built the first version of GREMLIN for his Master's project. That > version ran only on AED color displays, and its output could be printed > only on Versatec printers. In order to include figures in typeset > documents, they had to be cut-and-pasted. In 1983, Dave Slattengren > (another graduate student at UCB) acquired from AT&T the sources to > Brian Kernighan's new DITROFF program. In addition to making the > program work under 4.2 BSD and building drivers for several printers, > he wrote GRN, which reads files in GREMLIN format and generates > DITROFF commands to print the pictures in-inline in documents. > ... > 1.2 Distribution of GREMLIN > GREMLIN is distributed free of charge by the University of California, > Berkeley, along with a modified version of the DITROFF typesetting > system which allows GREMLIN pictures to be printed in-line in documents. > To find out more about the GREMLIN/DITROFF distribution, including the > AT&T licenses required to receive it, write to:" This sheds a lot of light. Thanks! Regards, Branden
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