TJ-2 (Type Justifying Program) was published by

Peter Samson Peter R. Samson (born 1941 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts) is an American computer scientist, best known for creating pioneering computer software for the TX-0 and PDP-1. Samson studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between 195 ...

in May 1963 and is thought to be the first page layout program. Although it lacks

page numbering Page numbering is the process of applying a sequence of numbers (or letters, or Roman numerals) to the pages of a book or other document. The number itself, which may appear in various places on the page, can be referred to as a page number or as ...

page header In typography and word processing, a page header (or simply header) is text that is separated from the body text and appears at the top of a printed page. Word-processing programs usually allow for the configuration of page headers, which are ...

s and footers, TJ-2 is the first

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

to provide a number of essential

typographic alignment In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell, or tab (and often to an image above it or under it). The type alignment setting is sometimes ref ...

and automatic

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...

features: * Columnation,

indentation __FORCETOC__ In the written form of many languages, an indentation or indent is an empty space at the beginning of a line to signal the start of a new paragraph. Many computer languages have adopted this technique to designate "paragraphs" or o ...

, margins, justification, and centering *

Word wrap Line breaking, also known as word wrapping, is breaking a section of text into lines so that it will fit into the available width of a page, window or other display area. In text display, line wrap is continuing on a new line when a line is ful ...

page break A page break is a marker in an electronic document that tells the document interpreter that the content which follows is part of a new page. A page break causes a form feed to be sent to the printer during spooling of the document to the printer. ...

s and automatic hyphenation *

Tab stop A tab stop on a typewriter is a location where the carriage movement is halted by an adjustable end stop. Tab stops are set manually, and pressing the tab key causes the carriage to go to the next tab stop. In text editors on a computer, the sam ...

simulation Developed from two earlier Samson programs, Justify and TJ-1, TJ-2 was written for the

PDP-1 The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachusett ...

that was donated to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1961 by

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...

. Taking English text as input, TJ-2 aligns left and right margins, justifying the output using white space and word hyphenation. Text is marked-up with single lowercase characters combined with the PDP-1's overline character, carriage returns, and internal concise codes. The computer's six toggle switches control the input and output devices, enable and disable hyphenation and stop the session. Words can be hyphenated with a

light pen A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's cathode-ray tube (CRT) display. It allows the user to point to displayed objects or draw on the screen in a similar way to a tou ...

on the computer's CRT display and from the session's dictionary in memory. On-screen hyphenation has ''SAVE'' and ''FORGET'' commands and ''

OOPS Oops or OOPS is an interjection made in response to a minor mistake. It may also refer to: Television and film * "Oops" (Frasier episode), an episode of the TV sitcom ''Frasier'' * "Oops" (Family Ties episode), an episode of the TV sitcom ''Fam ...

'', the undo. Comments in the code were quoted thirty years later: "The ways of God are just and can be justified to man" and "Girls who wear pants should be sure that the end justifies the jeans." TJ-2 was succeeded by

TYPSET and RUNOFF 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. Of two earlier print/formatting programs DITTO and TJ-2, only the latter had, and intro ...

, a pair of complementary programs written in 1964 for the CTSS operating system. TYPSET and RUNOFF soon evolved into

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...

for

Multics Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...

, which was in turn ported to

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

in the 1970s as roff. A similar program for the ITS

PDP-6 The PDP-6, short for Programmed Data Processor model 6, is a computer developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) during 1963 and first delivered in the summer of 1964. It was an expansion of DEC's existing 18-bit systems to use a 36-bit d ...

and later the

PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...

was TJ6. R. Greenblatt, B.K.P. Horn, L.J. Krakauer, "The Text-Justifier TJ6", M.I.T. Project MAC Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Memo 164A
June 1970

Notes

References

* Transcription of the 1963 memo describing TJ-2, with annotations by Daniel P. B. Smith * . Samson begins at 1:16. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tj-2 Desktop publishing software Text editors Typesetting software Typesetting Word processors History of software

See also

Notes

References