POX is one of the myriad XGP formatting programs.  Its  major
advantages  are vectors and macros together with precise placement of
everything under user (programmer)  control.   Alternatives  are  PUB
which  can produce output for other devices (LPT, TTY and some exotic
ones) as well as produce footnotes and indexes, and TEX which has the
prettiest  layout  of  text  and most of what is needed for technical
papers but alas doesn't have vectors or diagonal lines, compile-time
arithmetic, nor several other essential features I keep forgetting,
and doesn't have a good enough macro facility.  Thus POX remains the
only document compiler in existence that can completely typeset (on
the XGP only) a mathematical paper that has complicated formulas or graphs.
	The command "XSP POX.XGP[UP,DOC]"  will  produce hardcopy  of
the writeup (appx. 30 pages).  Occasional users can often borrow  one
of the listings of the manual rather than make a new one.  (Sometimes
there is a spare in the lounge or the publications room.)
	A very old  POX writeup  in TTY/LPT format  is available  for
remote users.  It is extremely obsolete, but you can find the  basics
in it.  To see  it on your  terminal, use "TYPE  POXOLD.REM[UP,DOC]".
An "UNXGP"ed version of POX.XGP is available in POX.REM[UP,DOC].   It
is slightly unreadable since the  UNXGPing process loses many of  the
finer points of text placement, and also many lines are too wide  for
most displays.   But  it's  there,  and  it's  more  up-to-date  than
POXOLD.REM and more readable than POX.XGP if you don't have an XGP.
	POX is growing more and more obsolete, and soon there may be
a direct replacement, probably written in MacLISP.  At present I am
consolidating all old POX information files (including old versions
of POX.LOG and POX.PLN, random messages I've sent myself suggesting new
features needed in POX and its successors, and reports from users of
bugs which are unlikely to ever be fixed in the present POX but which
ought to be considered when writing the successor to POX).  Anyone
interested in knowing the true state of POX, anyone interested in
helping work on new document compilers, might want to brouse these files.
An index of the document-compiler-related files consolidated to date
is in POX.DIR[1,REM].

The standard POX compiler is POX.DMP[1,3], but often there is a newer
experimental  version  and/or one or more older backup versions.  The
experimental version is NPOX.DMP[1,3] and the backups are given names
POX.*[1,3] where the * is the month and date the version was created,
for example POX.414 on April 14 and POX.C06 on December 06.