perl@rdin.UUCP (Robert Perlberg) (03/21/84)
<> Many thanks to the many people who responded to my request for the format of the nroff driver tables. I received a number of copies of the term(5) manual page. (I wonder why none of our manuals have it when it seems to be so widely known.(?)) There is, however, a slight problem. The manual page says that the structure must be #include'd in a file in /usr/src/cmd/text/roff.d/terms.d called maketerms.c and made with the makefile terms.mk. Can anyone provide me with these and any other necessary files? The fact that they are stored under /usr/src would seem to indicate that one would need a source license, but why should I need a source license to create a driver table for a new printer? If this is so, and you cannot provide me with the files, could anyone tell me what other info is needed in the file besides the structure? I looked at the tab37 file on my system and it contains a lot of stuff before the structure contents. It is not, as someone suggested, a ".o" file with the ".o" chopped off, since the "file" command tells me that the "tab" files are "data"; I tried using the ".o" file but it didn't work. Also, can anyone tell me which characters correspond to which positions in the "codetab" array? I've figured out that the first 95 characters correspond to the ASCII set starting from " " (space), but I'm not sure about all of the others. Examination of the tab37 file has given a lot of them to me, but a lot more of them are generated by using the tty37's alternate character set, which I have no reference for. I'm even more interested in getting this to work now, because before I received the term(5) man page I didn't know that nroff was so versatile. Robert Perlberg Resource Dynamics Inc. New York philabs!rdin!rdin2!perl
geoff@callan.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (03/31/84)
> The fact that they are stored under /usr/src would seem to indicate > that one would need a source license, but why should I need a > source license to create a driver table for a new printer? - Robert Perlberg Sorry, Bob. You made the mistake of assuming AT&T is (a) logical and (b) concerned with the usability of Unix. In fact, AT&T still (yes, even since System V was released) assumes that *ALL* Unix installations are: (1) universities (2) with infinite funds (3) running on Vaxes (and no 730's or 810's, please!) (4) source-licensed (5) staffed with several Unix wizards (6) used only by PhD engineers and Unix gurus This shows up time and time again when you try to run (or, god forbid, sell) Unix on a single-drive micro with floppy backup. Take a look at the documentation; it reeks of non-professionalism in both the programming and the documentation itself. An example: in diff(1), under "Bugs" they say "Editing scripts produced under the -e or-f option are naive about creating lines consisting of a single perios (.)." But what I want to know is this: WHY DON'T YOU GUYS ***FIX*** THE BUG, INSTEAD OF JUST DOCUMENTING IT AND CONSIDERING THAT SUFFICIENT? It's not that hard; I've looked at the code (and I intend to fix it as soon as I have time). Another example: how many non-Bell installations use Bell modems/ACU's? (silence). But does Unix support the many intelligent modems on the market? Nooooooo. Logic does not bother Bell, nor do the realities of the market. Nobody inside Bell has ever taken the time to sit down, go through *all* of Unix, and figure out what is needed to make it usable to the holder of a binary license. Maybe (hah!) they are planning on that for System VI (6? Version 6? 6th Edition? Who understands about not confusing the customer with totally unnecessary changes in numbering systems?) but I am not going to hold my breath for fear of turning into IBM's colors. Geoff Kuenning Callan Data Systems ...!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!trwrb!wlbr!callan!geoff VAX? Is that a 68000 with the bytes going the other way?
chris@basser.SUN (Chris Maltby) (04/06/84)
x > This shows up time and time again when you try to run (or, god > forbid, sell) Unix on a single-drive micro with floppy backup. Take > a look at the documentation; it reeks of non-professionalism in both > the programming and the documentation itself. Some of us like it that way, you know. I don't think anyone ever thought that ATT (or especially Bell Labs) had some responsibilty to make life easy for morons. (Boo-hoo). Innovative programmers need salesmen sitting on them like they need more orifices in their skulls. My case rests. Chris Maltby University of Sydney (and loving it)