man preprocessor different than on Red Hat?

[Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>]

In the preparation of a package, I've come up against a man page
made for Red Hat that doesn't process correctly for Debian (at
least on slink).

The man page defines a table like so:

[cut]
Hit ^C to stop after you see something like:

.in +3
.TS
tab(#);
l2 s2 s2 s4 s2 s4 s
l2 l2 l2 l4 l2 l4 l.
powstatd: online (standalone), watching /dev/ttyS0.#
CTS#DSR#DCD#RNG#DTR#RTS#STATUS
1#0#1#1#0#1#OK
1#0#1#1#0#1#OK
1#0#1#1#0#1#OK
1#0#1#1#0#1#OK
.TE
.in -3
[cut]

On Red Hat, the page looks like:

       Hit ^C to stop after you see something like:

          powstatd: online (standalone), watching /dev/ttyS0.
          CTS    DSR   DCD    RNG     DTR    RTS     STATUS
          1      0     1      1       0      1       OK
          1      0     1      1       0      1       OK
          1      0     1      1       0      1       OK
          1      0     1      1       0      1       OK

On Debian (slink), it looks like:

          tab(#); l2 s2 s2 s4 s2 s4 s1 s l2 l2 l2 l4 l2 l4 l1  l.
          powstatd:  online  (standalone),  watching /dev/ttyS1.#
          CTS#DSR#DCD#RNG#DTR#RTS#STATUS#         1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#
          1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#     1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#     1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#
          0#0#1#1#0#1#FAIL#<-   plug   pulled   0#0#1#1#0#1#FAIL#
          0#0#1#1#0#1#FAIL#  0#0#1#1#0#1#FAIL#  1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#<-
          plug reinserted 1#0#1#1#0#1#OK# 1#0#1#1#0#1#OK#

Any ideas about:

 1- Why Debian is different (inferior?)
 2- How I should change the formatting so the page looks right on
    Debian?

Thanks!
-- 
Peter Galbraith, research scientist          <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 1000, Mont-Joli Qc, G5H 3Z4 Canada. 418-775-0852 FAX: 775-0546
    6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/