Hi Ian, I don't want to reopen this bug--I appreciate your swift resolution!--but I did want to correct myself on a point.
At 2023-07-17T14:32:40+0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
[I wrote]:
> > Man pages are formatted for a width of 78n if the terminal width is
> > 80 columns. This origin of this practice is not well documented but
> > experience with groff upstream leads me to believe that it is a
> > workaround for bugs in GNU tbl(1). (In AT&T Unix Version 7, they
> > were formatted for a line length of 65n, with a page offset of one
> > tenth of an inch. On Western Electric Teletype Model 37 printing
> > terminals.)
I managed to confuse myself by reading Version 7 Unix man(7)'s code for
drawing cut marks.
The page offset for the default nroff device (the aforementioned Model
37) was zero.
Demonstration
=============
$ pdp11
PDP-11 simulator V3.8-1
sim> set cpu 11/45
Disabling XQ
sim> set tto 7b
sim> att rl unix_v7_rl.dsk
sim> boot rl
@boot
New Boot, known devices are hp ht rk rl rp tm vt
: rl(0,0)rl2unix
mem = 177856
# Restricted rights: Use, duplication, or disclosure
is subject to restrictions stated in your contract with
Western Electric Company, Inc.
Thu Sep 22 21:03:18 EDT 1988
login: dmr
$ cat measure.man
.pl 30v
.TH measure 1 2023-07-21 "ad hoc man page"
.SH Name
measure \- determine some nroff formatting parameters
.SH Description.
.nr w \w'M'
The width of a character cell (1 en) is \nw basic units.
.br
.nr o \n(.o/\nw
The page offset is \n(.o (\non).
.br
.nr l \n(.l/\nw
The line length is \n(.l (\nln).
.br
.nr i \n(.i/\nw
The indentation is \n(.i (\nin).
.PP
Bye!
$ nroff -man measure.man
measure(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual measure(1)
Name
measure - determine some nroff formatting parameters
Description.
The width of a character cell (1 en) is 24 basic units.
The page offset is 0 (0n).
The line length is 1560 (65n).
The indentation is 120 (5n).
Bye!
Printed 9/22/88 2023-07-21 1
$ exit
Regards,
Branden
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