TYPSET is an early document editor that was used with the 1964-released RUNOFF program, one of the earliest text formatting programs to see significant use.[1]
Of two earlier print/formatting programs DITTO and TJ-2, only the latter had, and introduced, text justification; RUNOFF also added pagination.
The name RUNOFF, and similar names led to other formatting program implementations. By 1982, Runoff (a name not possible before lowercase letters were introduced to filenames) largely became associated with Digital Equipment Corporation and Unix computers. DEC used the terms VAX DSR and DSR to refer to VAX DIGITAL Standard Runoff.[2]
Documentation for the Multics version of RUNOFF described it as "types out text segments in manuscript form."[4]
Other versions and implementations
A later version of runoff for Multics was written in PL/I by Dennis Capps, in 1974.[5]
This runoff code was the ancestor of roff that was written for the fledgling Unix in assembly language by Ken Thompson.
The origin of IBM's SCRIPT software began in 1968 when IBM contracted Stuart Madnick of MIT to write a simple document preparation tool[7] for CP/67,[8] which he modelled on MIT's CTSS RUNOFF.[9]
It actually consisted of a pair of programs, TYPSET (which was basically a document editor), and RUNOFF (the output processor). RUNOFF had support for pagination and headers, as well as text justification (TJ-2 appears to have been the earliest text justification system, but it did not have the other capabilities).
RUNOFF is a direct predecessor of the runoff document formatting program of Multics, which in turn was the ancestor of the roff and nroff document formatting programs of Unix, and their descendants. It was also the ancestor of FORMAT for the IBMSystem/360, and of course indirectly of every computerized word processing system.
When you're ready to order,
call us at our toll free number:
.BR
.CENTER
1-800-555-xxxx
.BR
Your order will be processed
within two working days and shipped
Output:
When you're ready to order, call us at our toll free number:
1-800-555-xxxx
Your order will be processed within two working days and shipped
^Bader, William (June 16, 2023). "DEC VAX History". Retrieved 2024-04-20. DSR stands for Digital Standard Runoff, a text formatter similar to roff.
^"Multics Features". Ken Thompson wrote a version of QED in BCPL, and Doug McIlroy and Bob Morris wrote Multics runoff in BCPL based on Jerry Saltzer's MAD version of RUNOFF
^Jerry Saltzer (October 23, 2011). "UNIX manpage history: CTSS RUNOFF". "compose" was apparently a PL/I re-write of RUNOFF on Multics. […] the secondary record shows Dennis Capps as starting compose in 1974.
^"The Language List". January 23, 1995. Archived from the original on 2018-10-05. Retrieved 2024-04-20. RUNOFF - An early text-formatting language supported under TOPS-10 on the PDP-10.
^"Script/PC". PC Magazine. March 19, 1985. p. 210. IBM contracted Stuart Madnick of MIT to write a simple document preparation
^Barnes, Larry (27 March 1973). RUNOFF: A Program for the Preparation of Documents(PDF). Bitsavers' PDF Document Archive. Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. R-37. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
^Raymond, Eric S. (ed.). "The Jargon Lexicon". The Jargon File. 4.4.7. ROFF which was in turn modeled after the Multics and CTSS program RUNOFF by Jerome Saltzer (that name came from the expression "to run off a copy").
