Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:50:16 +0100 From: Bob Bishop <rb@gid.co.uk> To: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> Cc: Gordon Tetlow <gordon@tetlows.org>, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Removal of catman from base Message-ID: <EA6C0799-46D9-4782-9E07-4826433D6B4B@gid.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <78909.1505251253@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <20170912184200.GD99742@gmail.com> <77524.1505242222@critter.freebsd.dk> <alpine.BSF.2.21.1709121210140.54096@orthanc.ca> <78909.1505251253@critter.freebsd.dk>
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Hi, > On 12 Sep 2017, at 22:20, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> = wrote: >=20 > -------- > In message <alpine.BSF.2.21.1709121210140.54096@orthanc.ca>, Lyndon = Nerenberg writes: >>> That was actually not why catman was brought into the world: = ATT/USL >>> thought text-processing was The Goods so they unbundled it base SVR >>> and invented catman to make up for the missing nroff. >>=20 >> Not quite. They (AT&T) sold the rights to sell typeset manuals to = some=20 >> publishing house (I forget which), at which point they stopped = shipping=20 >> the *roff source for the manpages on the source tapes. Instead, you = got=20 >> pre-formatted "cat" pages on the source tape. I think this happened=20= >> starting with SVR3. That is correct. We wrote some excruciatingly ugly scripts that mostly = reconstructed the *roff source from the formatted pages. > I'm pretty sure that SVR1 had catman and roff was an extra and = somewhat > pricey software package. That is also correct: by SVR5 that had become the Documenter=E2=80=99s = Workbench (DWB). > --=20 > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe =20 > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by = incompetence. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to = "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >=20 -- Bob Bishop rb@gid.co.uk
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