Q: How do I use man pages for Minix 1.6 or higher with Minix 1.5? A: The man pages generally available on the net are collections of small files, one topic per file, as are used by versions of Minix from 1.6 on, and by most Unix-like systems. Earlier versions of Minix used a different format, in which all the man "pages" in a section are concatenated in a single large file. This makes it possible to create an index and to see a menu of available choices in response to the man command with no arguments. However, users of Minix 1.5 who get newer man pages from the net need to know how to make the concatenated files. There are two problems. First, standard man files (like those available on the net) are meant to be processed by a formatting program like nroff with the -man macro definitions. But the Minix 1.5 man command is designed to display a flat text file. Unfortunately the nroff and macros available supplied with Minix 1.5 are not adequate to the task of converting standard man files to flat text. Minix was originally distributed with a printed manual (not free!). If you have access to any other Unix-like system with a standard nroff and nroff macros (as in Minix 1.7) you can convert standard man files to flat text on it. If your only resource is the nroff that comes with Minix 1.5 you can partially process the files with this, but they still will need editing. An editor like elle that lets you define macros is probably the easiest way. Second, you have to concatenate the files and add index lines. There isn't any documentation on the format of Minix 1.5 man files except what is inherent in the Minix 1.5 man.c source. The 1.5 man files consist of index lines that begin with a "#" in the first column, followed by lines of text to be displayed when one of the keywords in the preceding index line is selected from the keyword menu or as an argument to the man command. The index lines are not displayed, but all lines of text up to but not including the next index line will be displayed. New articles may be added to a man file by concatenation, but if a keyword appears more than once only the last reference will be displayed. In use, the Minix 1.5.10 man command expects to find files man in the directory/usr/man. The command format is man [ [arg2]] If the command is given with no arguments a menu of the keywords in man1 is presented. If the commmand is given with one argument, if the argument is a suffix of a man file in /usr/man a menu of the keywords in man is presented. If the commmand is given with one argument, if the argument is not a suffix of a man file in /usr/man a search is made for an article with a keyword corresponding to arg1 in man1. If the command is given with two arguments the first argument is used to select a file man and the second argument is the keyword to search for. Within a menu the arrow keys move the cursor around and the Enter key selects an article. Articles can be paged using the Enter key. Presentation of an article may be interrupted by the Delete or Q keys. When in menu mode the menu will be presented each time an article is complete. The Delete or Q keys will exit from the menu back to the command line prompt. Under some circumstances the Delete key will not work, but the Q key will continue to function.