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From: tanner@ki4pv.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Where are the small thinkers now that we can't use them?
Message-ID: <8710261630.AA01633@gatech.edu>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 13:46:30 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.8710261630.AA01633
Posted: Mon Oct 26 13:46:30 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Oct-87 01:58:14 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 20

Well, that note touched a sensitive location here.  I used to use
"roff"  when  I  was  in  school,  because  everything it did was
reduced to one page of instructions.  I further reduced it to one
macro and occasional use of ".ul 1" and ".ce 1".

Well, I'm not using an 11 any more, and  "roff"  is  now  darkest
history.  I learned to use "nroff", which was still fairly simple
if you weren't trying to do a whole lot.

Creeping featurism is here, however, and I now maintain a  couple
of  messy  files  of  nroff/troff  macros  (yup,  we're now using
"troff" here for the  final  print).   I  pretend  to  understand
traps,  fonts,  number  registers,  basic  units,  page  offsets,
double-column output, and all that happy stuff now.

Of course, the telling point is that it takes  longer  to  get  a
(prettier) document out the door now than it used to.

					Tanner Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand