Jason,
There was a Unix-based emacs from the Labs, back in the day: Warren Montgomery's
emacs.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.emacs/f7L4OYbJT5U
It was installed on the UCB Cory Hall PDP-11/70 running 2.8 BSD when I gained access (an
account) to it in January 1981. I used Montgomery emacs as my transition aid to Unix
because TECO-based EMACS was the first screen-oriented editor I had learned to use on the
CERAS DECsystem-20/60 running TOPS-20, during a 1978 summer school session at Stanford.
I switched to vi relatively rapidly that winter - it faster, and I disliked having one
finger on the "control" key all day long. However, I've never forgotten a
series of emacs key bindings, and that's been ... useful in a wide range of
circumstances where I've encountered other systems put together by people from that
"culture" (e.g. Cisco IOS). I also claim to have made an informed choice of text
editor: I use vi and prefer it, despite having learned emacs first.
Perhaps someone else here can speak to how widely Montgomery emacs was used at Bell Labs
or elsewhere.
Erik Fair