I have a printed copy of The USENET Cookbook (aka alt.gourmand
); it
is, in my idyllic opinion, the best cookbook ever. This is a local
copy of a version I typeset, partially as an exercise to typeset it.
It took some whacking to work right (notably locating and fixing
ptx
, the permutating index tool), but eventually I wound up with
working output. It’s also a great demonstrator of how good Troff is
as a typesetting system, and how well the UNIX philosophy (do one
thing, do it well) applies to typesetting and formatting.
This copy is derived from a copy that I found at
ftp://ftp.isy.liu.se/pub/misc/recipes.tar.Z;
there’s an extracted version hosted on
ibiblio and
HTML at
lysator.liu.se.
I’ve also added the documentation for the recipe management tools and
the description of how alt.gourmand
works to the introduction
section.
Without further ado, here it is. In true UNIX tradition, there’s compress’d PostScript (I was toying with putting the ditroff version up too, but I’m not sadistic enough). If you don’t know what to do with that, use the PDF at the end.