Re: [Groff] Blast from the past

[Jones, Larry]

Steffen Nurpmeso <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> Heinz-Jürgen Oertel <address@hidden> wrote:
>  |Am Montag, 9. Februar 2015, 16:19:51 schrieb Peter Schaffter:
>  |> Groffers --
>  |>
>  |> I don't see any mention of this in the list archives, and it's too
>  |> wonderful to miss.  If you want a glimpse of days gone by, have a
>  |> look at
>  |>
>  |>   http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/751318.pdf
>  |
>  |I like this statement:
>  |"ROFF is a computer program which produces esthetically pleasing \
>  |manuscripts from punched card source texts."
> 
> ..and i hoped that it wasn't used for producing the document in
> question, seldom have i seen such huge gaps in between words, it's
> almost unreadable (in fact i gave up after a few pages)!

"This report is itself an example of a ROFF generated manuscript."

We're talking the dark ages here of line printers and automated typewriters,
both of which have fixed character spacing. When the only option is to insert
full spaces, that's the best you can do. (Personally, I'd have opted for a 
ragged
margin instead.)

-Larry Jones