troff

Troff is a tried and true UNIX program for formatting and phototypesetting text. Originally written in PDP-11 assembler, and then in early C, by Joseph Ossana, it was modeled on an earlier program "roff" which in turn was modeled on a program named runoff (as in running off a copy). In 1979 troff was modified by Brain Kernighan so that it could drive phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT.

With its venerable line of descent, troff has proven to be a robust and flexible tool. The success of desktop publishing systems has reduced troff's importance, but it has played a major role for UNIX programmers.

URLs:

The Jargon File (Hacker's Dictionary)

This interesting collection of definitions has a good description of troff (and don't miss the Hacker Folklore section).

W3E References:

TeX

UNIX

Print References:

• HTML Publishing with Internet Assistant by Gayle Kidder and Stuart Harris. Ventana Press, Research Triangle Park, NC, 1995 (ISBN: 1-56604-273-9)