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<title>Background (The GNU Troff Manual)</title>
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Next: <a href="What-Is-groff_003f.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">What Is <code class="code">groff</code>?</a>, Previous: <a href="Introduction.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Introduction</a>, Up: <a href="Introduction.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Introduction</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Request-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<h3 class="section" id="Background-1">1.1 Background</h3>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-background"></a>
<p>M. Douglas McIlroy, formerly of AT&T Bell Laboratories and present at
the creation of the Unix operating system, offers an authoritative
historical summary.
</p>
<blockquote class="quotation">
<p>The prime reason for Unix was the desire of Ken [Thompson], Dennis
[Ritchie], and Joe Ossanna to have a pleasant environment for software
development. The fig leaf that got the nod from …
management was that an early use would be to develop a “stand-alone”
word-processing system for use in typing pools and secretarial offices.
Perhaps they had in mind “dedicated”, as distinct from
“stand-alone”; that’s what eventuated in various cases, most notably
in the legal/patent department and in the AT&T CEO’s office.
</p>
<p>Both those systems were targets of opportunity, not foreseen from the
start. When Unix was up and running on the PDP-11, Joe got wind of
the legal department having installed a commercial word processor.
He went to pitch Unix as an alternative and clinched a trial by
promising to make <code class="code">roff</code> able to number lines by tomorrow in order
to fulfill a patent-office requirement that the commercial system did
not support.
</p>
<p>Modems were installed so legal-department secretaries could try the
Research machine. They liked it and Joe’s superb customer service.
Soon the legal department got a system of their own. Joe went on to
create <code class="code">nroff</code> and <code class="code">troff</code>. Document preparation became a
widespread use of Unix, but no stand-alone word-processing system was
ever undertaken.
</p></blockquote>
<p>A history relating <code class="code">groff</code> to its predecessors <code class="code">roff</code>,
<code class="code">nroff</code>, and <code class="code">troff</code> is available in the <cite class="cite">roff<span class="r">(7)</span></cite>
man page.
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