Talk:SCRIPT (markup)

When did Script start?

Script happened earlier than the 1980s... 17:55, 22 June 2006‎ User:71.156.15.166

examples

Does anyone have access to an example of SCRIPT? John Vandenberg 08:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just going to ask this. I no longer have access to SCRIPT, or I'd do this myself. Could someone please script "Lorem Ipsum" or some other short piece of text with some sample markup, including named fonts? The input and a scan of the formatted output would be nice. IBM manuals don't even have a good example of a marked-up document I could use as a base.

Maybe the SCRIPT/VS Student Text would have examples, but it's not online. Peter Flass (talk) 14:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

IBM VM Script goes back to the late sixties

I used it as a rookie at IBM in '77

Here are the commands I remember:

.pa - Page advance
.sp - space
.ce - center
.im - inbed media 
.lf - left format
.ju - justify
.rh / R / C / L  - running header
.rf  " - running footer

and the infamous

.fo off - format off

(allowed for wysiwyg text entry; unfortunately, it was the only command that 90% of the salesforce every used.)

Mrprtr 04:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Mrprtr, much appreciated. Please, please add any other factoids you can add here, as they will be very useful in trying to search journals and the like. John Vandenberg 04:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

What connection does PostScript have with SCRIPT?

They seem very different: a page-description interpreted language versus a text-formatting markup language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.80.190.200 (talk) 11:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

Follow-on Products

In the process of forrecting a sentence, I've mentioned two follow-on products. Should those go in "See Also", or is that only for predecessors? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 14:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

References to precursors?

I see a need for a SCRIPT (markup) article covering the predecessors to SCRIPT/VS. I vaguely recall that there was one for CP-67 before the VM version. Also, can anybody document my recollection that the original Script was inspired by runoff on CTSS

I'd appreciate any references, both dead tree and online, appropriate for this (SCRIPT/VS) article and any references appropriate for a new SCRIPT (markup) article. If you don't want to edit the article yourself, give me the references and I'll take care of it. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 14:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Seymour - I agree. I started looking at the relevant articles, and "typesetting", which redirects from Text_formatting, has more info than this. I think the history should be added as "Script (text formatting" or "Script (markup)", and Script/VS just redirect to there since it is only the latest incarnation and not much different than its predecessors.

Do all markup languages go back to CTSS runoff, as has been suggested? How about a family tree of text formatting languages. Certainly both CTSS and Script originate at the Cambridge Science Center. The "runoff" documentation is online at http://mit.edu/saltzer/www/publications/ctss/AH.9.01.html. See page 15, the commands certainly look a lot like Script. Peter Flass (talk) 15:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's do it. There's a lot of room for improvement in the documentation of the evolution of markup languages. At present, SCRIPT redirects to SCRIPT/VS. We can grow SCRIPT into a robust article that subsumes the content of SCRIPT/VS. Maybe the first step is an admin-assisted move from SCRIPT/VS to SCRIPT? — Ringbang (talk) 19:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Created SCRIPT (markup) containing most of the text from this article with a few additions, and made this article redirect there. The article Typesetting#SCRIPT_variants had a list including Waterloo Script, etc. so I moved DWSCRIPT there. This article, and the whole markup language area, still looks to need improvement. Peter Flass (talk) 19:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

New Article

Created article containing most of the content of SCRIPT/VS, which now redirects here. Peter Flass (talk) 19:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Bookmanager and BookMaster

I added sections on these products that are layered on top of SCRIPT, though I'm open to the idea that they're not worth including. I toyed with the idea of separate articles, but they're certainly not worthy of that. Peter Flass (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I fleshed it out a little, but I need to add some references when I get home. Also, if someone with an FTP server, Hercules and a running OS/VS1, SVS or MVS is willing to do an IEBCOPY load of one of my AWS encoded tapes, I can provide some sample SCRIPT for the article. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Article structure

I have several questions about the best way to structure the article.

• There is a section called examples, but it is actually a table of typical control words, with an example of each contol word in isolation. I see a need for examples of raw Script, EasyScript and GML SS running from half a dozen to two dozen lines each, and a more descriptive title for the table of control words.

• Should there be a separate section for GML, or should part of it be folded into the introduction and part into GML SS?

• Do we need more references, or would that be TMI?

• Should we check the external links for duplicates?

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

There have been requests for examples going back to 2006. As I said, I don't want to try to concoct anything from memory since I couldn't test it. I like the idea of a separate GML section. Peter Flass (talk) 23:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Note that generic GML doesn't relate to Script and that there is a separate article on it, which is why I suggest only a brief reference in the introduction with specific details in the sections on EasyScript, GML SS, BookMaster and BookManager BUILD.

I can provide some real world examples of documents using native script control words, if someone is prepared to extract IEBCOPY unloads from an AWS tape image. Those might, however, be too large for the article. Alternatively, I could slap together some short examples, although I also lack the means to test them. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't have my Hercules VM/370 handy - was pre-VS SCRIPT standard with VM? Any sample output would have to be 1403. Peter Flass (talk) 00:00, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

VM didn't come with any version of Script, but Script/370 ran under CMS and came out well before Script/VS. I still need to track down online copies of the Waterloo Script documentation and to add sections for it. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:51, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

EasyScript is not GML

Shouldn't EasyScript have its own section? Its tag set is not GML or SGML, although it was certainly an inspiration for the development of GML. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:46, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

A lot about input, but nothing about output?

I see a lot being said about input. I miss some information what comes out at the other side? Maybe something to steer a phototypesetter? Would be interesting to have this article expanded accordingly. Poc (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It depends on which Script you're talking about, but in general, the DEVICE parameter can request formatting for a 2741, a 3270, a line printer, an Advanced Function Printer (AFP), e.g. 3800-3, or STAIRS. There was a product for PDF as well, but I've never used it and don't know much about it.

The exact layout of the output will depend on the parameters used to process the document; not just obvious things like page size but also what content will be included; it's possible to have common input files for multiple versions of a document, whith conditional logic to select what material to include for each type of reader. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Symbols versus variables

@Kittybwained: Edit permalink/1324316180 changed one occurrence of variable to symbol. However, the term is endemic in the article and there are three types of references to symbolic variables with identical syntax.

1. Symbols defined in the input as text strings, using .SE
2. Symbols defined by SCRIPT, e.g., &SYSYEAR
3. Symbols defined using Define variable (.DV), which carry font information as well as test.

Fixing this will require pinning down the nomenclature and some wordsmithing. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:20, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

IMO we should use symbol for things defined with .SE and variable for things defined with .DV, IIRC that's how the IBM SCRIPT/VS documentation does it. "Variable" seems to only be used in the lead and under EasyScript. There's also one occurence of "variable symbol" but I think that's fine since it's using variable as an adjective not a noun. Should I update those 2 occurences to be symbol too? Lisa Felidae (she/her) (talk) 16:29, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

The SCRIPT/VS documentation is all over the place, and we need language that covers older versions as well, to say nothing of Waterloo. I see in the DCF Text Programmer's Guide

1. local variable
2. symbol
3. symbolic variable
4. system symbol
5. text variable

It appears as if symbol is the generic term, but I can't find the reference on bitsavers to confirm. To add to the confusion, Read Variable (.RV) sets the value of a normal symbol rather than a text variable. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

I have a .BOO of SH35-0070-06 DCF: SCRIPT/VS Language Reference, Seventh Edition (January 1991) for DCF Release 4, which seems to almost always use symbol for SYSVAR and things defined with .SE, and variable for .DV. .RV [Read Variable] is an exception, but the text describing that control word still uses "symbol", only the control word's name refers to them as variables (probably some historic thing it wasn't worth changing). Symbol is the more common term IMO. Lisa Felidae (she/her) (talk) 05:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

That suggests using the term symbol consistently and mentioning text variable as a special case of symbols. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 10:43, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Notes

References