[comp.text] "Berkeley version" of ditroff ?

dave@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Dave Marquardt) (07/10/87)

At some time in the distant past I'd seen references to a "Berkeley version"
of ditroff.  Is this real, or was this a bad pointer?  If it is real,
what is this "Berkeley version" and how would I get it?

	Dave

roc@apollo.UUCP (07/14/87)

dave@rosevax.Rosemount.COM asks:

> At some time in the distant past I'd seen references to a "Berkeley version"
> of ditroff.  Is this real, or was this a bad pointer?  If it is real,
> what is this "Berkeley version" and how would I get it?

     This appears to be a semantic problem.  In my
     world (at least), there are just two kinds of troff.
     
     One produces output for a C/A/T, and was originally
     written by Joseph Osanna at Bell Labs.  It was part
     of UNIX until Release 2 of System V.  It is 
     currently called troff by BSD folks and otroff 
     by System V folks.  The BSD and System V versions
     have diverged somewhat (no suprise here), but the
     output file formats are essentially the same.
     
     The other produces ASCII output and comes
     with several filters which convert that output
     to device-specific opcodes (e.g., ImPress).
     It was written (I believe) by Brian Kernighan
     at Bell labs, and has been marketed by AT&T
     as part of the Documenter's Workbench (DWB).
     It is currently called ditroff by BSD folks and 
     troff by System V folks.
     
     Or am I misinformed?

-r

Richard Curtis
{umix | mit-eddie | uw-beaver}!apollo!roc

lee@rocksanne.UUCP (Lee Moore) (07/15/87)

> > At some time in the distant past I'd seen references to a "Berkeley version"
> > of ditroff.  Is this real, or was this a bad pointer?  If it is real,
> > what is this "Berkeley version" and how would I get it?

UC Berkeley (Computer Center) did hack on ti-troff to have longer names.
They did other things to but I can't recall exactly.

Lee
-- 
Lee Moore -- Xerox Webster Research Center, birthplace of the XGP
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tut%cairo@Sun.COM (Bill Tuthill) (07/16/87)

In article <326@rocksanne.UUCP>, lee@rocksanne.UUCP (Lee Moore) writes:
> At some time in the distant past I'd seen references to a "Berkeley version"
> of ditroff.  Is this real, or was this a bad pointer?  If it is real, what
> is this "Berkeley version" and how would I get it?

A few years back, the UC Berkeley Computer Science dep't distributed tapes
of a modified ditroff package, which included gremlin (a Mac-like graphics
editor that ran on Suns and other graphics devices), and dsun/dsuntool (a
ditroff previewer for the Sun workstation).  Gremlin required extensions to
troff involving polygon fill, and the fallout from that was that all the
device filters needed changing as well.

My advice is, don't do it.  Since this troff is non-standard you're stuck
with maintaining an odd version forever.  Gremlin has a rather mediocre user
interface; I prefer fig from U Texas, even though fig doesn't do shading and
polygon fill.  But dsun/dsuntool is great if you have a Sun workstation, and
could even be modified for another workstation.

Bill

dave@rosesun.Rosemount.COM (Dave Marquardt) (07/16/87)

In article <360e65f8.1054@apollo.uucp> roc@apollo.uucp (Richard Curtis) writes:
>dave@rosevax.Rosemount.COM asks:
>
>> At some time in the distant past I'd seen references to a "Berkeley version"
>> of ditroff.  Is this real, or was this a bad pointer?  If it is real,
>> what is this "Berkeley version" and how would I get it?
>
>     This appears to be a semantic problem.  In my
>     world (at least), there are just two kinds of troff.

Richard goes on to explain the old C/A/T troff vs. device independent troff.

Well, there actually is a Berkeley ditroff.  If you have a source license for
System V Release 2 (and maybe higher -- there's some confusion here) or for
Documenter's Workbench, you can get Ditroff/Gremlin from UCB's EECS/ERL
Industrial Liaison Program for $175.  

The major differences are that it's been reworked to compile and run nicely
on 4.3 BSD systems and to use the 4.3 BSD spooling facilities.  Another 
addition is Gremlin, a line-drawing program that runs on the Sun and 
produces code you can include in your text with a filter called "grn".

If you're interested in this, send me mail and I'll send you more details.  If 
I get enough interest I'll post the information to this newsgroup.

	Dave