jgd@uwmcsd1.UUCP (04/13/87)
[Stupid question of the month... for January 1987. So I'm a little late.]
Reading through the -me reference manual for 4.3bsd, I see references to
"picture" preprocessors called "ideal" and "gremlin" -- "pic" I already know
about. No other references to these beasties seem to appear in the Berkeley
documentation.
Since these are new to me, my stupid question is: What are they? Are they
available? If so, how?
(Well, actually that was three questions, but who's counting?)
--
John G Dobnick
Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
UUCP: {ihnp4|uwvax|uwmacc}!uwmcsd1!jgd
INTERNET: jgd@csd1.milw.wisc.edu
"Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation,
and is thus a source of civilized delight." -- William Safiremao@blipyramid.UUCP (04/14/87)
In article <1963@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, jgd@uwmcsd1.UUCP (John G Dobnick) writes: > > Reading through the -me reference manual for 4.3bsd, I see references to > "picture" preprocessors called "ideal" and "gremlin" -- "pic" I already know > about. > > Since these are new to me, my stupid question is: What are they? Are they > available? If so, how? ideal is a picture-description language that uses cartesian coordinates heavily. from the user's manual: to take advantage of ideal's capabilities, you must believe that \fIcomplex numbers are good\fP. the manual, and presumably the code, are by christopher j. van wyk. i don't know who you need to contact to get source, or what the licensing restrictions are. anyone else? the manual's got some sexy pictures in it -- polygons filled and clipped, easily-generated grids of various shapes, and so on. the language claims to support vector math. note that although we've got source, i haven't compiled it, and don't know how well it works. mike
rusty@weyl.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (04/15/87)
In article <21@blipyramid.BLI.COM> mao@blipyramid.BLI.COM (Mike Olson) writes: >the manual, and presumably the code, are by christopher j. van wyk. >i don't know who you need to contact to get source, or what the licensing >restrictions are. anyone else? > >note that although we've got source, i haven't compiled it, and don't know >how well it works. > mike It works well although if I remember correctly there are some (ideal code) library routines missing (arc, I think). We got ours (where I worked before) before AT&T started marketing System V (or was it III?). This was back when they were also distributing ditroff which at that time was an unsupported hack that had been done by Brian Kernighan. Once they started marketing System V and ``Documenter's Workbench'' they stopped marketing ideal; my guess is that it's because they didn't have anybody in the support group to support it; Chris van Wyk works in Research. -------------------------------------- rusty c. wright rusty@weyl.berkeley.edu ucbvax!weyl!rusty
jay@unm-la.UUCP (Jay Plett) (04/17/87)
In article <1124@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>, rusty@weyl.Berkeley.EDU (Rusty Wright) writes: > .......... Once they started marketing System V and ``Documenter's > Workbench'' they stopped marketing ideal; my guess is that it's > because they didn't have anybody in the support group to support it; AT&T still licenses Device-independent troff (ditroff) as an unsupported product. Ideal is included in the package, as is tbl, eqn, pic and grap. I haven't tried to compile ideal, but the rest of the distribution is sound. It has recently (Jan 86) been updated so that the code is nearly identical to DWB 2.0. The biggest difference is the lack of DWB's fancy manuals and some of the auxiliary programs. -- Jay Plett UUCP: {cmcl2,ihnp4}!lanl!unm-la!jay {ucbvax,gatech}!unmvax!unm-la!jay ARPA: jxyp@lanl