Re: [Groff] The Great 202 Jailbreak.

[Ralph Graulich]

>> Hi Ralph,
> Ditto!  :-)

And likewise… ;-)

[...] "Berkeley Font Catalogue"
> The troff there for selecting the font refers to it as just `ch'.  Does
> that mean the file on disk would be similarly shortly named?  I
> downloaded a few Ultrix disk and tape images and poked around a bit but
> didn't come across it.

I assume it was named "CH", but I am not sure, as I am not experienced with 
this rather old version of troff. The troff versions I used named their fonts 
like groff does or something similar with only slight variations. But, as 
mentioned, I can just guess.

Most of the Ultrix tapes I have access to have disintegrated. They were among 
the very few full sized QIC tapes that didn't last very well - or maybe I was 
just lucky that the others are still working pretty well. In the remainings of 
what was recoverable I didn't find any chess font, however, I didn't find any 
other font files either. So there are several possibilities: Either the font 
files were on some unrecoverable parts of the tapes (in that case we should 
blame Murphy)  or they were named differently or they simply weren't included 
with the versions I checked.

For my macro package I use the Adobe chess font, as it is free to use. The 
pieces are configurable (name -> glyph), so any similarly built font could be 
swapped with ease. It would be nice however to include the original Berkeley 
chess font just for nostalgic reasons and maybe even switching to that font as 
the default. Not that it was particularly well designed and beautiful, but it 
was a milestone in typesetting.
If I read correctly, the font was included from Berkeley, so licensing 
shouldn't be an issue, if it is clearly stated where the font came from and 
what license it is licensed under - if one ever happens to come across that 
font.

Maybe I should contact Dave Brailsford, as he probably reconstructed the chess 
font, too, while reconstructing the troff source for the Linotron 202 paper.

Regards,
Ralph