Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!ucsd!nosc!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lll-tis!ames!hc!beta!hwe
From: hwe@beta.UUCP (Skip Egdorf)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: PDP-10 user I/O (really: third-party operating systems)
Summary: RE: Really old codes -> troff
Message-ID: <19840@beta.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jun 88 02:46:47 GMT
References: <3327@phri.UUCP> <125@daitc.ARPA> <23004@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <3330@phri.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 34

In article <3330@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
> In article <23004@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
> > Depending on exactly where you start counting from Unix is getting
> > close to 20 years old
> 
> 	More amazing is that troff (if you count its roots back to the old
> RUNOFF programs on TOPS-10) is probably even older than that.

Actually, TOPS-10 RUNOFF and Unix's ROFF are both siblings on the family
tree of the MIT roff program by J. Saltzer.
Roff was the stylistic insperation for troff which was followed by
nroff (for preview of troff on 'N'ormal terminals).

Also of like age is vi / ex / ed / qed ... back to where early
teco split from the same family, leading to ITS teco, leading
to emacs...
They are all related to some extent. Perhaps someday enough of this
folklore will be lost to where computer anthropologists (You don't think
they are alive??) will be holding learned conferances about
troff Robustus and ed Habilis and the relationship between the two.

This is getting a bit away from 'arch'itecture and I would like to draw
it back a bit. Some reading this might think that the history of our field
is not of particular interest. I disagree, and would recommend that
at least at the master's level (if not the undergrad), a history
of computers course would be useful. I don't mean just the big
historical systems read about in an OS or computer architecture
course, but a more 'history' like class including the economics
and internal political struggles of the industry.
I wonder how many of the undergrads drooling over the power of
SunOS 4.0's mmap() recognize Multics in the shadows?

					Skip Egdorf
					hwe@lanl.gov