#troff — Public Fediverse posts

How far will I go to avoid using a proper #WordProcessor, and be able to change names or genders of #story #characters in a zealously #DRY way? #Emacs #Lisp #Orgmode #LaTeX is apparently how far. And I'm having serious thoughts about making it work for #troff descendants as well.

To borrow a lyric from #TMBG, "This could lead to excellence, or serious injury"

In the mid 1980s the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester began using Typesetter-Independent troff with an experimental laser printer and a strange phototypesetter. This report described their experience, war stories, and advice for implementors of troff post processors.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=6623&itemFileId=11036

#troff #unix #retrocomputing

In the mid 1980s the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester began using Typesetter-Independent troff with an experimental laser printer and a strange phototypesetter. This report described their experience, war stories, and advice for implementors of troff post processors.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=6623&itemFileId=11036

#troff #unix #retrocomputing

In the mid 1980s the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester began using Typesetter-Independent troff with an experimental laser printer and a strange phototypesetter. This report described their experience, war stories, and advice for implementors of troff post processors.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=6623&itemFileId=11036

#troff #unix #retrocomputing

In the mid 1980s the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester began using Typesetter-Independent troff with an experimental laser printer and a strange phototypesetter. This report described their experience, war stories, and advice for implementors of troff post processors.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=6623&itemFileId=11036

#troff #unix #retrocomputing

In the mid 1980s the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester began using Typesetter-Independent troff with an experimental laser printer and a strange phototypesetter. This report described their experience, war stories, and advice for implementors of troff post processors.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=6623&itemFileId=11036

#troff #unix #retrocomputing

I used the opportunity to also “fix” the #troff output, i.e., it was already working, but I updated the image handling and added EPS versions of the sample images, so formatting the documentation with troff should now work out of the box.

I used the opportunity to also “fix” the #troff output, i.e., it was already working, but I updated the image handling and added EPS versions of the sample images, so formatting the documentation with troff should now work out of the box.

I used the opportunity to also “fix” the #troff output, i.e., it was already working, but I updated the image handling and added EPS versions of the sample images, so formatting the documentation with troff should now work out of the box.

I used the opportunity to also “fix” the #troff output, i.e., it was already working, but I updated the image handling and added EPS versions of the sample images, so formatting the documentation with troff should now work out of the box.

Neben alten Computern hab' ich's ja auch mit Typographie, Buchdruck und Fotosatz. Von da ist es dann nicht mehr weit zu Textsatz mit dem Computer und der Welt von troff, pic und eqn. Dazu heute zwei Neuzugänge im Alteisenregal. #vintagecomputing #bücherliebe #unix #techhistory #dtp #troff

Neben alten Computern hab' ich's ja auch mit Typographie, Buchdruck und Fotosatz. Von da ist es dann nicht mehr weit zu Textsatz mit dem Computer und der Welt von troff, pic und eqn. Dazu heute zwei Neuzugänge im Alteisenregal. #vintagecomputing #bücherliebe #unix #techhistory #dtp #troff

Neben alten Computern hab' ich's ja auch mit Typographie, Buchdruck und Fotosatz. Von da ist es dann nicht mehr weit zu Textsatz mit dem Computer und der Welt von troff, pic und eqn. Dazu heute zwei Neuzugänge im Alteisenregal. #vintagecomputing #bücherliebe #unix #techhistory #dtp #troff

Neben alten Computern hab' ich's ja auch mit Typographie, Buchdruck und Fotosatz. Von da ist es dann nicht mehr weit zu Textsatz mit dem Computer und der Welt von troff, pic und eqn. Dazu heute zwei Neuzugänge im Alteisenregal. #vintagecomputing #bücherliebe #unix #techhistory #dtp #troff

Neben alten Computern hab' ich's ja auch mit Typographie, Buchdruck und Fotosatz. Von da ist es dann nicht mehr weit zu Textsatz mit dem Computer und der Welt von troff, pic und eqn. Dazu heute zwei Neuzugänge im Alteisenregal. #vintagecomputing #bücherliebe #unix #techhistory #dtp #troff

If you have to Leto, he has to villain.

It just doesn't work any other way.

This looks like they know that (now) and marketing is trying to pass the reluctant hero savior off as a horror villain.

and... Well done, trailer somehow awakened a tiny tinge of anticipation long thought dead for this film series (and this one in particular).

So mark me down as mildly anticipating a far future lazy Sunday watching it on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZW6RrmGRHc

#TRON #TROFF

If you have to Leto, he has to villain.

It just doesn't work any other way.

This looks like they know that (now) and marketing is trying to pass the reluctant hero savior off as a horror villain.

and... Well done, trailer somehow awakened a tiny tinge of anticipation long thought dead for this film series (and this one in particular).

So mark me down as mildly anticipating a far future lazy Sunday watching it on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZW6RrmGRHc

#TRON #TROFF

If you have to Leto, he has to villain.

It just doesn't work any other way.

This looks like they know that (now) and marketing is trying to pass the reluctant hero savior off as a horror villain.

and... Well done, trailer somehow awakened a tiny tinge of anticipation long thought dead for this film series (and this one in particular).

So mark me down as mildly anticipating a far future lazy Sunday watching it on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZW6RrmGRHc

#TRON #TROFF

If you have to Leto, he has to villain.

It just doesn't work any other way.

This looks like they know that (now) and marketing is trying to pass the reluctant hero savior off as a horror villain.

and... Well done, trailer somehow awakened a tiny tinge of anticipation long thought dead for this film series (and this one in particular).

So mark me down as mildly anticipating a far future lazy Sunday watching it on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZW6RrmGRHc

#TRON #TROFF

If you have to Leto, he has to villain.

It just doesn't work any other way.

This looks like they know that (now) and marketing is trying to pass the reluctant hero savior off as a horror villain.

and... Well done, trailer somehow awakened a tiny tinge of anticipation long thought dead for this film series (and this one in particular).

So mark me down as mildly anticipating a far future lazy Sunday watching it on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZW6RrmGRHc

#TRON #TROFF

@ctietze A lot of my target use case hinges around this: how can I change the attributes of a character (name, gender, species, etc.) in a document without doing a potentially-catastrophic search-and-replace across the entire document? Preserving the character’s function and role within the work despite changing almost anything else about them.

In the #troff world you can do this pretty easily with the .ds macro to build a library of direct string substitutions.

\*[fuHERO] overcomes \*[paHERO] foe!

Perhaps there is a more native way to do it in #LaTeX than I have found; I haven’t researched it thoroughly. You can definitely set up data structures in #Emacs #lisp and pick out the attributes with #orgmode macros.

{{{fu(hero)}}} overcomes {{{pa(hero)}}} foe!

Here using `fu` for “full name” and `pa` for “gendered possessive adjective” (his/her/their/its).

In favor of #troff is the lower-level stuff. You can use macros to define strings en masse and then override individual choices for particularly weird characters. The downside is that you end up building up a library of macros to supplement your chosen package so that the main body of your document looks more like semantic than physical markup. And you probably need a #Makefile to assemble anything beyond a trivial document.

In favor of #LaTeX is mostly the higher-level stuff, and the short distance to semantic markup. #orgmode shortens this even further, and you can build your document in a single command (C-c C-e l p). But now the low-level stuff becomes annoying.

Perhaps with more research I can find the appropriate packages, but that may obviate the benefits of #orgmode altogether. Hopefully a well-fitting puzzle piece is out there, somewhere…

It’s all #tradeoffs but it’s not for paid work so I only have to worry about whether or not it works for me.

@ctietze A lot of my target use case hinges around this: how can I change the attributes of a character (name, gender, species, etc.) in a document without doing a potentially-catastrophic search-and-replace across the entire document? Preserving the character’s function and role within the work despite changing almost anything else about them.

In the #troff world you can do this pretty easily with the .ds macro to build a library of direct string substitutions.

\*[fuHERO] overcomes \*[paHERO] foe!

Perhaps there is a more native way to do it in #LaTeX than I have found; I haven’t researched it thoroughly. You can definitely set up data structures in #Emacs #lisp and pick out the attributes with #orgmode macros.

{{{fu(hero)}}} overcomes {{{pa(hero)}}} foe!

Here using `fu` for “full name” and `pa` for “gendered possessive adjective” (his/her/their/its).

In favor of #troff is the lower-level stuff. You can use macros to define strings en masse and then override individual choices for particularly weird characters. The downside is that you end up building up a library of macros to supplement your chosen package so that the main body of your document looks more like semantic than physical markup. And you probably need a #Makefile to assemble anything beyond a trivial document.

In favor of #LaTeX is mostly the higher-level stuff, and the short distance to semantic markup. #orgmode shortens this even further, and you can build your document in a single command (C-c C-e l p). But now the low-level stuff becomes annoying.

Perhaps with more research I can find the appropriate packages, but that may obviate the benefits of #orgmode altogether. Hopefully a well-fitting puzzle piece is out there, somewhere…

It’s all #tradeoffs but it’s not for paid work so I only have to worry about whether or not it works for me.

I guess I’m doing something of a competition between #Emacs #orgmode export to #LaTeX and lovingly hand-crafted #heirloom #doctools #troff (-me).
I briefly considered an export from #orgmode to #groff (-ms) via #pandoc to see if the two approaches could possibly share anything, but that may be a gulf that is not worth crossing.

One of the macros I had coded up was to present something as a link to its entry in the appendix the first time it appeared on a new page, and ordinary text without link for subsequent mentions on the same page. While I’m sure there is a way to do this in the #TeX universe, I don’t know (yet) if it is considered sufficiently within the #LaTeX mindset to be worth attempting.

Building up from physical to logical to semantic markup feels more natural in #troff. Reaching down from #LaTeX into #TeX to perform computation in your document feels discouraged, doubly so when exporting from #orgmode. It is a wonderful method for planning, organizing, and ultimately creating a beautiful document from a single source file.

Different people want different things out of their typesetting systems. I’m glad to have spent some time in both the #troff and #TeX worlds.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m reasonably proud of what I have accomplished with #heirloom #doctools (a.k.a. #troff that is not #groff) and I even learned a few neat #makefile tricks along the way. But given how much time I spend with #emacs and #orgmode perhaps I should seriously investigate duplicating or imitating the work in #LaTeX. It did not take as long as I feared it would to get the color and font matters worked out. The #macros look like they will translate easily enough, with some support from #elisp. Links and bookmarks look like they will work themselves out. Pictures could be…interesting.

My poll about *nix typesetting systems ended today and I published on my Phlog my thoughts about it:

gopher://sdf.org/0/users/syntaxerror/phlog/2024-09-05-Typesetting-Systems-Currently-In-Use.txt

#troff #unix #nix #latex #linux #bsd #gopher #phlog

I guess I’m doing something of a competition between #Emacs #orgmode export to #LaTeX and lovingly hand-crafted #heirloom #doctools #troff (-me).
I briefly considered an export from #orgmode to #groff (-ms) via #pandoc to see if the two approaches could possibly share anything, but that may be a gulf that is not worth crossing.

One of the macros I had coded up was to present something as a link to its entry in the appendix the first time it appeared on a new page, and ordinary text without link for subsequent mentions on the same page. While I’m sure there is a way to do this in the #TeX universe, I don’t know (yet) if it is considered sufficiently within the #LaTeX mindset to be worth attempting.

Building up from physical to logical to semantic markup feels more natural in #troff. Reaching down from #LaTeX into #TeX to perform computation in your document feels discouraged, doubly so when exporting from #orgmode. It is a wonderful method for planning, organizing, and ultimately creating a beautiful document from a single source file.

Different people want different things out of their typesetting systems. I’m glad to have spent some time in both the #troff and #TeX worlds.

I guess I’m doing something of a competition between #Emacs #orgmode export to #LaTeX and lovingly hand-crafted #heirloom #doctools #troff (-me).
I briefly considered an export from #orgmode to #groff (-ms) via #pandoc to see if the two approaches could possibly share anything, but that may be a gulf that is not worth crossing.

One of the macros I had coded up was to present something as a link to its entry in the appendix the first time it appeared on a new page, and ordinary text without link for subsequent mentions on the same page. While I’m sure there is a way to do this in the #TeX universe, I don’t know (yet) if it is considered sufficiently within the #LaTeX mindset to be worth attempting.

Building up from physical to logical to semantic markup feels more natural in #troff. Reaching down from #LaTeX into #TeX to perform computation in your document feels discouraged, doubly so when exporting from #orgmode. It is a wonderful method for planning, organizing, and ultimately creating a beautiful document from a single source file.

Different people want different things out of their typesetting systems. I’m glad to have spent some time in both the #troff and #TeX worlds.

I guess I’m doing something of a competition between #Emacs #orgmode export to #LaTeX and lovingly hand-crafted #heirloom #doctools #troff (-me).
I briefly considered an export from #orgmode to #groff (-ms) via #pandoc to see if the two approaches could possibly share anything, but that may be a gulf that is not worth crossing.

One of the macros I had coded up was to present something as a link to its entry in the appendix the first time it appeared on a new page, and ordinary text without link for subsequent mentions on the same page. While I’m sure there is a way to do this in the #TeX universe, I don’t know (yet) if it is considered sufficiently within the #LaTeX mindset to be worth attempting.

Building up from physical to logical to semantic markup feels more natural in #troff. Reaching down from #LaTeX into #TeX to perform computation in your document feels discouraged, doubly so when exporting from #orgmode. It is a wonderful method for planning, organizing, and ultimately creating a beautiful document from a single source file.

Different people want different things out of their typesetting systems. I’m glad to have spent some time in both the #troff and #TeX worlds.

I guess I’m doing something of a competition between #Emacs #orgmode export to #LaTeX and lovingly hand-crafted #heirloom #doctools #troff (-me).
I briefly considered an export from #orgmode to #groff (-ms) via #pandoc to see if the two approaches could possibly share anything, but that may be a gulf that is not worth crossing.

One of the macros I had coded up was to present something as a link to its entry in the appendix the first time it appeared on a new page, and ordinary text without link for subsequent mentions on the same page. While I’m sure there is a way to do this in the #TeX universe, I don’t know (yet) if it is considered sufficiently within the #LaTeX mindset to be worth attempting.

Building up from physical to logical to semantic markup feels more natural in #troff. Reaching down from #LaTeX into #TeX to perform computation in your document feels discouraged, doubly so when exporting from #orgmode. It is a wonderful method for planning, organizing, and ultimately creating a beautiful document from a single source file.

Different people want different things out of their typesetting systems. I’m glad to have spent some time in both the #troff and #TeX worlds.

@GeePawHill My personal best value per byte changed:

So, troff was crashing and the company couldn't get its next round of funding without that 400pp report. The problem got handed to me, the summer student, along with the source code for troff, which was ... very terse. Somehow I looked at it stored state, and it turns out that troff paged data to a fixed size file, ~5MB. (Sized for an RK05 disk pack?)

Adding a single `0` to the right `#define` fixed the problem.

#unix #c #troff #debugging

@GeePawHill My personal best value per byte changed:

So, troff was crashing and the company couldn't get its next round of funding without that 400pp report. The problem got handed to me, the summer student, along with the source code for troff, which was ... very terse. Somehow I looked at it stored state, and it turns out that troff paged data to a fixed size file, ~5MB. (Sized for an RK05 disk pack?)

Adding a single `0` to the right `#define` fixed the problem.

#unix #c #troff #debugging

@GeePawHill My personal best value per byte changed:

So, troff was crashing and the company couldn't get its next round of funding without that 400pp report. The problem got handed to me, the summer student, along with the source code for troff, which was ... very terse. Somehow I looked at it stored state, and it turns out that troff paged data to a fixed size file, ~5MB. (Sized for an RK05 disk pack?)

Adding a single `0` to the right `#define` fixed the problem.

#unix #c #troff #debugging

@GeePawHill My personal best value per byte changed:

So, troff was crashing and the company couldn't get its next round of funding without that 400pp report. The problem got handed to me, the summer student, along with the source code for troff, which was ... very terse. Somehow I looked at it stored state, and it turns out that troff paged data to a fixed size file, ~5MB. (Sized for an RK05 disk pack?)

Adding a single `0` to the right `#define` fixed the problem.

#unix #c #troff #debugging

@GeePawHill My personal best value per byte changed:

So, troff was crashing and the company couldn't get its next round of funding without that 400pp report. The problem got handed to me, the summer student, along with the source code for troff, which was ... very terse. Somehow I looked at it stored state, and it turns out that troff paged data to a fixed size file, ~5MB. (Sized for an RK05 disk pack?)

Adding a single `0` to the right `#define` fixed the problem.

#unix #c #troff #debugging

Finally… a Man Page for Life https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #LinuxHacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #LinuxHacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #LinuxHacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life - How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #linuxhacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life - How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #linuxhacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life - How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #linuxhacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life - How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #linuxhacks #troff #life #roff #man

Finally… a Man Page for Life - How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ #linuxhacks #troff #life #roff #man

Don’t get me wrong; I’m reasonably proud of what I have accomplished with #heirloom #doctools (a.k.a. #troff that is not #groff) and I even learned a few neat #makefile tricks along the way. But given how much time I spend with #emacs and #orgmode perhaps I should seriously investigate duplicating or imitating the work in #LaTeX. It did not take as long as I feared it would to get the color and font matters worked out. The #macros look like they will translate easily enough, with some support from #elisp. Links and bookmarks look like they will work themselves out. Pictures could be…interesting.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m reasonably proud of what I have accomplished with #heirloom #doctools (a.k.a. #troff that is not #groff) and I even learned a few neat #makefile tricks along the way. But given how much time I spend with #emacs and #orgmode perhaps I should seriously investigate duplicating or imitating the work in #LaTeX. It did not take as long as I feared it would to get the color and font matters worked out. The #macros look like they will translate easily enough, with some support from #elisp. Links and bookmarks look like they will work themselves out. Pictures could be…interesting.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m reasonably proud of what I have accomplished with #heirloom #doctools (a.k.a. #troff that is not #groff) and I even learned a few neat #makefile tricks along the way. But given how much time I spend with #emacs and #orgmode perhaps I should seriously investigate duplicating or imitating the work in #LaTeX. It did not take as long as I feared it would to get the color and font matters worked out. The #macros look like they will translate easily enough, with some support from #elisp. Links and bookmarks look like they will work themselves out. Pictures could be…interesting.

A photo of the absolute steal I got at a local garage sale. The guy was a radar genius at a defense prime back in the day, and I picked up some of his books for 15¢ apiece.

The *Computational Physics* book was typeset with #TROFF on a DEC VAX-11/750 in '86. Another book includes a 5" floppy.

I also grabbed the Intel 8080 User Manual from '75.

#math #physics #radar #signalprocessing #bookstodon #retrocomputing

A photo of the absolute steal I got at a local garage sale. The guy was a radar genius at a defense prime back in the day, and I picked up some of his books for 15¢ apiece.

The *Computational Physics* book was typeset with #TROFF on a DEC VAX-11/750 in '86. Another book includes a 5" floppy.

I also grabbed the Intel 8080 User Manual from '75.

#math #physics #radar #signalprocessing #bookstodon #retrocomputing

My poll about *nix typesetting systems ended today and I published on my Phlog my thoughts about it:

gopher://sdf.org/0/users/syntaxerror/phlog/2024-09-05-Typesetting-Systems-Currently-In-Use.txt

#troff #unix #nix #latex #linux #bsd #gopher #phlog

My poll about *nix typesetting systems ended today and I published on my Phlog my thoughts about it:

gopher://sdf.org/0/users/syntaxerror/phlog/2024-09-05-Typesetting-Systems-Currently-In-Use.txt

#troff #unix #nix #latex #linux #bsd #gopher #phlog

My poll about *nix typesetting systems ended today and I published on my Phlog my thoughts about it:

gopher://sdf.org/0/users/syntaxerror/phlog/2024-09-05-Typesetting-Systems-Currently-In-Use.txt

#troff #unix #nix #latex #linux #bsd #gopher #phlog