[rescue] [off-topic] What was this markup language?

[microcode at zoho.com]

On Tue, Dec 08, 2015 at 08:26:20AM -0500, Andrew M Hoerter wrote:
> On 12/8/15 8:14, microcode at zoho.com wrote:
> 
> >I have dim memories of making a little money editing term papers on a DEC-20
> >in the early 1980s. It seems to me I used some kind of markup language where
> >the directives started with a "." character in the first column of the
> >line. I was able to do indenting and alignment and other text-processing stuff to
> >make the papers print out nicely.
> 
> I'd guess something in the runoff family -- troff, nroff, etc.
> 
> Still used today every time you read a manpage.
> 
> >Next question, other than LaTeX, are there any good choices in simple markup
> >languages suitable for writing letters and resumes, etc.? I'm not really
> >happy with Open/Libre Office nor the direction it's going in. I'd like to
> >look into some alternative where the input stays as ASCII text.
> 
> There are several options out there, some niche, some popular -- a couple of
> starter suggestions might be Markdown or Lout.

Thanks. Now that it was probably some form of runoff I'll look into that
first but will keep your suggestions handy.