Hi Branden, On Fri, May 02, 2025 at 09:51:04AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > At 2025-05-02T15:06:46+0200, Martin Lemaire wrote: > > Thank you Branden for those historical insights. > > Off-topic to Alejandro's initial question but related to the subject of > > justifying text set in monospace, do we owe this typographic gesture to > > the early *roff formaters or was it already a thing in previous > > publication tool, either software or hardware ? > > It dates back at least to "old" roff, which is one of the first Unix > programs ever to exist. It is older than the C language. > > roff(7): > > History > Computer‐driven document formatting dates back to the 1960s. The > roff system is intimately connected with Unix, but its origins lie > with the earlier operating systems CTSS, GECOS, and Multics. > ... > Unix and roff > McIlroy’s roff was one of the first Unix programs. In Ritchie’s > term, it was “transliterated” from BCPL to DEC PDP‐7 assembly > language for the fledgling Unix operating system. Automatic > hyphenation was managed with .hc and .hy requests, line spacing > control was generalized with the .ls request, and what later roffs > would call diversions were available via “footnote” requests. This > roff indirectly funded operating systems research at Murray Hill; > AT&T prepared patent applications to the U.S. government with it. > This arrangement enabled the group to acquire a PDP‐11; roff > promptly proved equal to the task of formatting the manual for what > would become known as “First Edition Unix”, dated November 1971. > > And, sure enough, it performed adjustment. We can observe its behavior > in Seventh Edition Unix (1979), which while much later chronologically, > also documents roff(1) as "utterly frozen". Joe Ossanna's nroff(1), > "new roff", appeared in Second Edition Unix (1972) and immediately > sucked up all the oxygen available for document formatting work at the > Bell Labs CSRC. > > ---snip--- > PDP-11 simulator V3.8-1 > Disabling XQ > @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 23:33:03 EDT 1988 > > login: dmr > $ cat lemaire > Off-topic to Alejandro's initial question but related to the subject of > justifying text set in monospace, do we owe this typographic gesture to > the early *roff formaters or was it already a thing in previous > publication tool, either software or hardware? > $ roff lemaire | sed '/^$/d' > Off-topic to Alejandro's initial question but related to the sub- > ject of justifying text set in monospace, do we owe this typogra- > phic gesture to the early *roff formaters or was it already a > thing in previous publication tool, either software or hardware? > ---end snip---
This example doesn't show the alternating preference of blanks left and right. Do you have any example that would do that? Cheers, Alex > > > Are you aware of theory or paper on the subject ? > > The practice of adjusting lines of text to be all the same length when > typesetting is an old one. It appears to be the practice in at least > some late-medieval illuminated manuscripts, and images of the pages of > the Gutenberg Bible that I can find online suggest to me that the > practice goes back to the dawn of the printing press. > > Since monospaced typefaces are a straightforward application of movable > type, the concept of "adjusting" printed lines thereof could not have > been novel. It was simply too tedious a practice to expect of > typewriter operators who composed text on the fly while drafting. > Computers, however, are perfect for automation of tedium. > > But I'm far from a subject matter expert. And a bit too young to opine > authoritatively on life at the CSRC. Fortunately, some groff list > subscribers have first-hand knowledge. :) > > Regards, > Branden -- <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
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