YELP about obtaining nroff (longish)

[James P. H. Fuller]

   I recently brought up a public access Unix site from scratch, never had
Unix before, and the worst problem I've blundered into so far is the fact
that all the geniuses who write the additional software that make a Unix
system burn brightly (i.e. the news distribution software, the news readers,
the smart mailers, the non-vi editors, etc. etc.)  insist on passing out
their man pages and other docs in files that are full of embedded nroff
commands.  Well, I don't *have* nroff -- it was many, many extra $$$ from
my vendor and I didn't get it, not realizing that it might be crucial.

   Now, some of these nroff'ed files are more or less human-readable as
they are, especially if they contain large blocks of text.  But where they
start to define the cryptic little commands that make the programs go you
can't (or anyway I can't) distinguish between cryptic-little-command-
being-defined and nroff-commands-embedded-in-definition. 

   I'm running SysVr3.2 on a 486 AT-clone and the monthly FAQ from
comp.unix.sysv386 answers the question "Where can I get troff?" ( problem
being that regular troff only outputs to phototypsetters whereas everyone
wants to output to laser printers.)  But it seems to me that WHERE CAN I GET
NROFF is a MUCH more burning question, and the FAQ doesn't mention that one.


   Here's what I tried before hollering for help on the net:

   1) man    
           I saw a one-line description of this ("A compiled 'man' program
      for SysV") and obtained it from NSF.mod.sources.  Turns out that it's
      a utility to help manage and update the entries under /usr/catman,
      but they have to be put there using nroff in the first place.  Nice,
      but not what I need.

    2) psroff
           Nope.  This one takes troff output and sends it to postscript or
       other less-expensive printers.  A great program and I'll keep it for
       later but it doesn't help me now.

    3) Coherent nroff
           I've got a 286 running Coherent as close as the other end of a
       serial cable.  Coherent comes with nroff (and troff and laserjet
       support) all included in the $99 price.  So, thinks I, I'll just
       shoot all this stuff over to Coherent and nroff it there and then
       uucp it back
           Nope.  Turns out Coherent's nroff isn't anything like a complete
       implementation -- lots of "xxx command not implemented yet" and
       the output contains missing fragments of text, frequently with no
       holes to show that something dropped out.  To do it justice it *did*
       do the job, didn't crash, but, well, it did a $99 job.  By printing
       out Coherent's nroff output *and also* printing out the unprocessed
       files and comparing the two a line at a time by hand I managed to get
       C news and nn up.  But I HOPE that's not the final solution!  There's
       gotta be a better way....  

    4) groff
            Ah yes, the legendary FSF!  groff, oh tantalizing groff!  To
       get groff you first have to obtain and compile gcc, and then obtain
       and compile g++, and then you can try to build FSF groff.  KIDS,
       DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!  I'm a brand-new DOS retread, I program in
       Turbo Pascal and MS Fortran, my knowledge of C is still strictly at
       the "hello, world" level  (I only recently found out that printf
       doesn't mean PRINT, YOU STUBBORN #%$@))*!!)  For me, building
       gcc-->g++-->groff is an option for the rosy but distant future; it
       sho' ain't going to happen this week.
            A fellow posted a complete set of groff 0.4 binaries to comp.
       unix.sysv386 not long ago ready-compiled for the exact flavor of
       Unix I'm running (ISC) (and he got thoroughly flamed for it, though
       not by me) but one part of his 16-part post didn't make it to a
       number of sites including this one.  (GRRRRR!  Oh near miss!  Oh
       close but no cigar!)  I sent mail to the poster requesting the
       missing part but either my mail didn't reach him or his reply
       didn't make it back to me.  How can I explain to my CPU that it
       really OUGHT to be able to run with 15/16ths of a program?  C'mon
       little chip, you can do it baby, IM-provise!  That's the way, you
       got it ....


In summary, I've really run into a blank wall on this.  I'm trying to in-
stall a smart mailer and I want to read Larry Wall's paper on paths and
pathalias, and the paper is widely available but it's so thoroughly nroff'ed
(among other things) that it's actually broken up into a bunch of ittybitty
pieces with a makefile!  As far as I'm concerned it might as well be written
in Babylonian.  

   WHERE CAN I GET NROFF?  (I can't FTP, I'm a uucp-only site.)

   Or where can I get fake nroff, or enough of nroff to read all these
&^*%$$# heiroglyphic man pages?  Is it all a conspiricy to make me hand over
another 400 bucks to Interactive?  I know, money solves a lot of problems.
On the other hand, if I had wings I'd fly south for the winter, if I had wings.

   THANKS VERY MUCH!

                                                James P. H. Fuller
                                            jim%crom2 at nstar.rn.com