View source for Roff (software)

{{Short description|Text typesetting markup software}}
{{more footnotes|date=February 2013}}
{{lowercase|title=roff}}
{{Infobox software
| name                   = roff
| logo                   = 
| screenshot             = 
| screenshot size        = 
| caption                = 
| author                 = [[Joe Ossanna]], [[Ken Thompson]]
| developer              = [[AT&T Bell Laboratories]]
| released               = {{Start date and age|1971|11|3}}
| latest release version = 
| latest release date    = 
| operating system       = [[Unix]] and [[Unix-like]]
| genre                  = [[Command (computing)|Command]]
| license                = 
| website                = 
}}
'''roff''' is a [[typesetting]] [[markup language]]. As the first [[Unix]] [[text-formatting]] [[computer program]], it is a predecessor of the [[nroff]] and [[troff]] document processing systems.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Shotts |first=William E. |title=The Linux command line: a complete introduction |date=2019 |publisher=No Starch Press |isbn=978-1-59327-953-0 |edition=2 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>{{Rp|page=290}} 

Roff was a Unix version of the [[runoff (program)|runoff]] text-formatting program from [[Multics]], which was a descendant of [[RUNOFF]] for [[Compatible Time-Sharing System|CTSS]] (the first computerized text-formatting application). <ref name=":0" />

==History==
===CTSS===
''roff'' is a descendant of the [[TYPSET and RUNOFF|RUNOFF]] program by [[Jerry Saltzer]], which ran on [[Compatible Time-Sharing System|CTSS]]. [[Douglas McIlroy]] and [[Robert Morris (cryptographer)|Robert Morris]] wrote <code>runoff</code> for [[Multics]] in [[BCPL]] based on Saltzer's program written in [[MAD (programming language)|MAD assembler]]. Their program in turn was "transliterated" by [[Ken Thompson]] into [[PDP-7]] assembler language for his early Unix operating system, circa 1970.<ref name="Evolution">{{cite journal |first=Dennis M. |last=Ritchie |title=The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System |url=http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20100506231949/http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html |archive-date=6 May 2010 |journal=AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal |volume=63 |number=6 Part 2 |year=1984 |pages=1577–93|doi=10.1002/j.1538-7305.1984.tb00054.x |url-access=subscription }} As [http://www.read.seas.harvard.edu/~kohler/class/aosref/ritchie84evolution.pdf PDF]</ref><ref>{{cite web
|title=Multics Features
|editor-last=Van Vleck
|editor-first=Tom
|editor-link=Tom Van Vleck
|url=https://multicians.org/features.html
|date=20 April 2024
|access-date=6 May 2024
}}</ref>

When the first [[PDP-11]] was acquired for Unix in late 1970, the justification cited to management for the funding required was that it was to be used as a [[word processing]] system, and so ''roff'' was quickly transliterated again, into PDP-11 assembly, in 1971.

''roff'' printed the [[man page]]s for [[Version 1 Unix|Versions 1]] to [[Version 3 Unix|3]] of Unix, and when the [[Bell Labs]] patent department began using it, it became the first Unix application with an outside client.<ref name="reader">{{cite tech report |first1=M. D. |last1=McIlroy |author-link1=Doug McIlroy |year=1987 |url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |title=A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 |series=CSTR |number=139 |institution=Bell Labs}}</ref> [[Dennis Ritchie]] noted that the ability to rapidly modify ''roff'' (because it was locally written software) to provide special features was an important factor in leading to the adoption of Unix by the patent department to fill its word processing needs. This in turn gave Unix enough credibility inside Bell Labs to secure the funding to purchase one of the first PDP-11/45s produced.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}

==See also==
* [[nroff]]
* [[troff]]
* [[Groff (software)|groff]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* D. M. Ritchie, ''The Evolution of the'' UNIX ''Time-sharing System'' (AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, Vol. 63, No. 8, October 1984)

==External links==
* [https://linux.die.net/man/7/roff roff - Concepts and history of roff typesetting]

[[Category:Typesetting software]]

{{digital-typography-stub}}