ken@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) (10/21/87)
> From: davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) > > I've always wondered what the "n" [in nroff] was > for though ("non-typesetter"?). Probably "not". -- From Ken Johnson | Phone 031-225 4464 Ext 212 AI Applications Institute | Email ken@aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk 80 South Bridge | The University | EDINBURGH, Scotland EH1 1HN | "Either you are what you eat, or you are what eats you." (Mister Bignose)
philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) (10/26/87)
In article <180@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, ken@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) writes: > > From: davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) > > > > I've always wondered what the "n" [in nroff] was > > for though ("non-typesetter"?). > > Probably "not". Wrong. The history (like most other things about UNIX) was is explained in at least one version of the manuals (probably pre-AT&T). Once upon a time, there was a text formatting program running on DEC system 10's called Run-off. This was re-written to make text processing available on the early UNIX systems. It was called 'roff'. Roff was nice, in that it was FAST. However, it didn't have macros. So an new version was written New ROFF of nroff for short. Later this was hacked to run a typesetter (Typesetter ROFF), and hence troff. You may have noticed that as [nt]roff and its macro packages have increased in complexity they have become SLOW, this is why you find (well, sometimes) a thing called sroff (Simple ROFF), deliverd with system 5's. This seems to be basically roff, with a little bit of macro handling. So, once again, if you have any questions on unix commands, remember the age old phrase 'RTFM'. Philip
mikel@flmis06.att.com (Mikel Manitius) (10/28/87)
>From: davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) > > I've always wondered what the "n" [in nroff] was > for though ("non-typesetter"?). A long time ago, print jobs were "run offs", hence "roff". The 'n' in "nroff" is "Another ('nother) run off". M -- Mikel Manitius @ AT&T mikel@codas.att.com
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (10/31/87)
In article <180@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, ken@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) writes: > > From: davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) > > I've always wondered what the "n" [in nroff] was > > for though ("non-typesetter"?). > Probably "not". First there was runoff. When a version of this program was first implemented on UNIX, it was called roff. Mainly because ASR33s aren't conducive to long command names. I remember using roff, and I kinda wish it was still provided. It was really easy to do simple documents, a lot faster than nroff/troff, and available for non-UNIX systems (you can get it from the Software Tools group in Fortran). NROFF stands for "New ROFF". -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.