21 Jul
2025
21 Jul
'25
11:55 a.m.
Paul Winalski writes:
The original version of EMACS was a set ot TECO
macros.
Yes, but not any TECO. The macros make heavy use of ITS TECO particulars.
TECO ran on TOPS-10, so the TECO macro version of
EMACS ought to have
been able to run there, too.
No, because TOPS-10 TECO was another flavor.
Or did EMACS depend on features of TECO not
implemented on TOPS-10?
Yes. Maybe a short history of TECO is in order. TECO started on the
MIT RLE PDP-1. It was ported to the AI lab PDP-1, and made to use its
display. When the AI lab traded the PDP-1 for a PDP-6, TECO was quickly
rewritten for that machine. DEC engineer Bob Clements brought a copy of
this PDP-6 TECO to Stanford when overseeing the installation of a PDP-6
here. He ported TECO to run on the PDP-6 Monitor and removed display
features. He then brought this version of TECO back to DEC, where it
because a popular editor across all of DEC's machines. This flavor of
TECO was called Standard TECO. Since it developed from an an early and
lobotimized TECO, it doesn't have a rich set of features.
Meanwhile back at MIT, PDP-6 TECO was moved to ITS, still keeping the
original display features. It developed quickly and acquired many
features that never made it to DEC. EMACS eventually appeared as the
culmination and merging of many display-oriented TECO macros. The
combination of TECO and EMACS was ported to TOPS-20 and TENEX.
By the way, there is an "EMACS-11" that runs on TECO-11, and I suppose
that is a flavor of Standard TECO.