swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu (Steve Wooldridge) (08/09/89)
I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an acronym for something? I have checked several computer dictionaries in the University Library reference collection but only one had the term in it, and it told me what emacs is (which I already know). Can anyone help me out on this? Please reply to my internet address if you please. Thanks!
lum@armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lum Johnson) (08/09/89)
In article <2481@orion.cf.uci.edu> swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu (Steve Wooldridge) writes: >I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an >acronym for something? I have checked several computer dictionaries >in the University Library reference collection but only one had the >term in it, and it told me what emacs is (which I already know). > >Can anyone help me out on this? Please reply to my internet address >if you please. Thanks! Emacs == Editing MACros. Emacs was originally implemented circa 1971 under ITS (Incompatible Timesharing System) at MIT when Richard M Stallman (the same) added code to TECO to handle "dispatch vectors", ie, keymaps. In TECO one usually writes code in the form of macros, puts them into "q-registers", and executes them with the `m' (macro) command - eg, `mq' to execute the contents of q-register q as a macro. TECO, like LISP, represents code and data identically, so programs written in these languages may easily act upon, amoung other things, programs written in these languages, such as themselves. In these languages it is reasonably common to find programs which may rewrite or elaborate parts of themselves, or at least are able to do so. Of the two, LISP is easily the more readable. In fact, TECO (along with APL) has been described as a write-only language. Does anyone have a TECO emulator for GNU Elisp yet? Lum (Actually, you probably want a copy of an old MIT Technical Report on Emacs, if I can find my copy so I can tell you what to ask for.) -=- -- Lum Johnson lum@cis.ohio-state.edu lum@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu "You got it kid -- the large print giveth and the small print taketh away." -------
jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) (08/10/89)
In article <57187@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, lum@armadillo (Lum Johnson) writes: >TECO, like LISP, represents code and data identically, so programs >written in these languages may easily act upon, amoung other things, >programs written in these languages, such as themselves. In these >languages it is reasonably common to find programs which may rewrite >or elaborate parts of themselves, or at least are able to do so. >Of the two, LISP is easily the more readable. In fact, TECO (along >with APL) has been described as a write-only language. Bill Mann once described APL as "TECO on matrices". I suppose this makes Lisp "TECO on lists". >Does anyone have a TECO emulator for GNU Elisp yet? There is a TECO in C now; I think it was distributed in one of the comp.sources.* newsgroups. The Elisp version can't be too far off :-) To complete the history, one should mention TV TECO, which was an early attempt to make use of all those 24 lines on the tube (remember, much of the world was still using teletypes in 1971). It was as though you were always typing raw TECO at the minibuff line, then at the completion of a command it would show you 22 lines surrounding point. Point was shown with the two characters /\ . A little dumb, but it worked on a VT05. I think there were 3 or 4 of these half-way-from-TECO-to-EMACS attempts. WYSIWYG with self-insertion and automatic redisplay came later with EMACS. I'm not saying it was the first to do this, but in the TECO descendents I think it was. -- /jr, nee John Robinson Life did not take over the globe by combat, jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr but by networking -- Lynn Margulis
lum@armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lum Johnson) (08/10/89)
In article <44052@bbn.COM> jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) writes: >In article <57187@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, lum@armadillo (Lum Johnson) writes: >To complete the history, one should mention TV TECO, which was an >early attempt to make use of all those 24 lines on the tube (remember, >much of the world was still using teletypes in 1971). It was as >though you were always typing raw TECO at the minibuff line, then at >the completion of a command it would show you 22 lines surrounding >point. Point was shown with the two characters /\ . A little dumb, >but it worked on a VT05. I think there were 3 or 4 of these >half-way-from-TECO-to-EMACS attempts. I'm certain there were; I've seen at least four of them myself, and used at least three of them. Some were collections of macros such as QED and TVEDIT, and some were actually free-standing editors such as VTECO, standardized by Digital as TV for TOPS-20. There could easily have been many more. Emacs itself was one of about half-a-dozen dispatch-vector-driven editors developed circa 1971-1972, and is known to the world at large primarily because it absorbed the functionality of all the others before one of them could successfully absorb it. Emacs has been much like an amoeba from the very beginning. Someone recently posted "The Law of Software Development and Envelopment at MIT" to rec.humor.funny, which states that at MIT all programs grow and develop until they can read mail. With the Babyl library, that actually came rather early in Emacs' case. >WYSIWYG with self-insertion and automatic redisplay came later with >EMACS. I'm not saying it was the first to do this, but in the TECO >descendents I think it was. Actually, I think that visual redisplay may have just preceded Emacs, having been done in VTECO (although it wasn't automatic - you still needed to type ESC ESC to confirm and execute the command string), though I'm no longer sure. The self-insertion of printing characters was a natural consequence of the dispatch vector support. Lum -=- -- Lum Johnson lum@cis.ohio-state.edu lum@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu "You got it kid -- the large print giveth and the small print taketh away." -------
rgr@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (robert.g.robillard) (08/10/89)
Lum Johnson <lum@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: > swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu (Steve Wooldridge) writes: >>I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an >Emacs == Editing MACros. Can anyone out there give me the defintive relationship between the name "Emacs" and the Boston Ice Cream parlour "Emac and Bolio's"? I can't believe that it's a coincidence, particularly considering the relationship between Steve's Ice Cream and the Lisp Flavours system. -- | Duke Robillard | | Internet: rgr@m21ux.att.com | BITNET: rgr%m21ux.uucp@psuvax1 | | UUCP: {backbone!}att!m21ux!rgr | (maybe) |
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (08/11/89)
In article <2525@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> rgr@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (robert.g.robillard) writes: >Can anyone out there give me the defintive relationship between the >name "Emacs" and the Boston Ice Cream parlour "Emac and Bolio's"? >I can't believe that it's a coincidence, particularly considering >the relationship between Steve's Ice Cream and the Lisp Flavours >system. Well, I don't know whether EMACS was named after the ice cream parlor or not. However, the name similarity WAS eventually noticed by the folks at the MIT AI Lab. The Lisp Machines developed there originally included a text formatter called Bolio (the Lisp Machine text editor is called Zmacs). However, the Flavors object-oriented programming system definitely WAS patterned after Steve's Ice Cream. Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
idall@augean.OZ (Ian Dall) (08/11/89)
In article <57212@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Lum Johnson <lum@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >In article <44052@bbn.COM> jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) writes: >>In article <57187@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, lum@armadillo (Lum Johnson) writes: > >>WYSIWYG with self-insertion and automatic redisplay came later with >>EMACS. I'm not saying it was the first to do this, but in the TECO >>descendents I think it was. > >Actually, I think that visual redisplay may have just preceded Emacs, >having been done in VTECO (although it wasn't automatic - you still >needed to type ESC ESC to confirm and execute the command string), >though I'm no longer sure. The self-insertion of printing characters >was a natural consequence of the dispatch vector support. Well I am not certain of the dates but TECO definitely grew sufficiently to allow WYSIWIG editing with the appropriate macros. In fact I still have machine readable versions of VTEDIT.TEC which could be arranged to be autoloaded with the right magic and definitely allowed WYSIWIG editing with the ability to escape to execute extended commands if required ( like ESC ESC in GNU emacs). VTEDIT.TEC was for TECO-11 and I am not sure how the development of TECO-10 macros and TECO-11 macros compared. The VTEDIT.TEC is structured with "dispatch tables" which are rather like keymaps (except much harder to change and not self documenting). GNU EMACS shows some TECO heritage in its treatment of the buffer as a collection of characters (as opposed to a collection of lines) and the terms "point" and "dot" and the concept of registers. The default bindings for the register commands "copy-to-register" (C-x x) and "insert-register" (C-x g) are probably derived from the TECO "X" and "G" commands which do essentially the same things. GNU EMACS has made major advances over TECO and E-Lisp is a much better programming language for general use than TECO command language, but I still miss TECO when I want to do a once off complex editing function. If it is too complicated for a keyboard macro but simple enough for me to have a fair chance of getting it right first time, I would sooner write a TECO macro than an E-lisp function definition. -- Ian Dall life (n). A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts some people more severely than others. idall@augean.oz
dje@imokay.dec.com ( Secure Systems) (08/11/89)
Steve Wooldridge (swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu) asks: > I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an > acronym for something? As far as I know, EMACS stands for "Editor MACroS". The first incarnation of EMACS was a set of TECO editor macros that ran on ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing System) at MIT. ---- David Ellis Digital Equipment Corporation -- BXB1-1/D03 85 Swanson Road, Boxboro MA 01719 -- (508) 264-5073 Usenet: {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!ultra.enet.dec.com!ellis Internet: ellis@ultra.enet.dec.com
adrianb@queets.stat.washington.edu (Adrian Baddeley) (08/13/89)
In article <2525@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> robert.g.robillard writes: >Can anyone out there give me the defintive relationship between the >name "Emacs" and the Boston Ice Cream parlour "Emac and Bolio's"? While we're at it, is it true that the Australian email gateway `munnari' is named after a coffeeshop in Bourke Street, Melbourne? So _that's_ where all these names come from... ---- adrianb@castor.ms.washington.edu (until 21 august 1989) Adrian Baddeley, visiting Department of Statistics GN-22, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195, USA. tel (U of W): +1 206 545-2617 / 543-7237
mg@cidam.rmit.oz (Mike A. Gigante) (08/23/89)
In article <2169@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>, adrianb@queets.stat.washington.edu (Adrian Baddeley) writes: > In article <2525@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> robert.g.robillard writes: > While we're at it, is it true that the Australian email gateway > `munnari' is named after a coffeeshop in Bourke Street, Melbourne? > ---- > Adrian Baddeley, visiting Department of Statistics GN-22, If I remember correctly, munnari is an aboriginal word for a stub-tailed lizard in the goanna family. The name was (supposedly) chosen to bypass the head-of-dept's dislike of the nominated hostname 'goanna'.. The name also started a tradition that all hostnames at (M)elbourne (U)niversity start with 'mu' and are named after aboringinal words
jourdan@seti.inria.fr (Martin Jourdan) (08/25/89)
In article <491@imokay.dec.com> ellis@ultra.enet.dec.com (David Ellis - Secure Systems) writes: > > Steve Wooldridge (swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu) asks: > > > I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an > > acronym for something? > > As far as I know, EMACS stands for "Editor MACroS". [...] I also encountered the much nicer recursive acronym: EMACS == "Emacs Makes All Computing Simple[r]". But I grant that this probably is not the true origin... -- Martin Jourdan <jourdan@minos.inria.fr>, INRIA, Rocquencourt, France. My employers have no opinion and they guarantee my freedom of expression.
mike@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Mike Haertel) (09/07/89)
In article <253@seti.inria.fr> jourdan@seti.UUCP (Martin Jourdan) writes: >In article <491@imokay.dec.com> ellis@ultra.enet.dec.com (David Ellis - Secure Systems) writes: >> Steve Wooldridge (swooldri@orion.cf.uci.edu) asks: >> > I am trying to track down the orgin of the term "emacs." Is it an >> > acronym for something? >> As far as I know, EMACS stands for "Editor MACroS". [...] >I also encountered the much nicer recursive acronym: EMACS == "Emacs >Makes All Computing Simple[r]". But I grant that this probably is not >the true origin... Just to settle this once and for all. (I suppose someone will ask again next year . . .) The first Emacs was really a macro library for ITS TECO, a programmable editor. TECO (if you must know, it stands for Text Editor and COrector) is programmed in a true macro language (incidentally, I refer to the ITS version and not the more common but infinitely less capable version distributed, for example, with VMS). Emacs did stand for "Editor Macros." Although the recent editors of that name are programmable, they do not use macro languages, so the name has lost any meaning it once had, and is basically just a sort of trademark. Incidentally, I have this all on "reasonably" good authority, as I am employed by the Free Software Foundation, whose founder, Richard Stallman, is the author of the original ITS Emacs as well as GNU Emacs. (I've always thought that Emacs, if it stands for anything, stands for "Eventually Munches All Computer Storage." Certainly it does on my machine, which has only a measly 2MB of RAM.) You can order the original Emacs paper from the MIT AI lab if you're interested in its early history. -- Mike Haertel <mike@stolaf.edu> ``There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.'' -- J. S. Bach
low@melair.UUCP (Rick Low) (09/13/89)
In article <5503@thor.acc.stolaf.edu>, mike@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Mike Haertel) writes: [stuff deleted] > (I've always thought that Emacs, if it stands for anything, stands > for "Eventually Munches All Computer Storage." Certainly it does on > my machine, which has only a measly 2MB of RAM.) How about Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping or Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift ? Is it time to replay all those definitions I saw on Usenet a few years ago? -- Rick Low MEL Defence Systems Limited, Ottawa, Canada +1 613 836 6860 mitel!melair!low@uunet.UU.NET
mdb@ESD.3Com.COM (Mark D. Baushke) (09/13/89)
On 12 Sep 89 18:16:15 GMT, low@melair.UUCP (Rick Low) said: Rick> Is it time to replay all those definitions I saw on Usenet Rick> a few years ago? Please don't. GNU Emacs dist-18.xx/etc/emacs.names (where xx is any number from somewhere around 26 through 55) has the entire list that was posted previously. An ls of the file gives: -rw-rw-r-- 1 emacs 6901 Mar 6 1986 emacs.names -- Mark D. Baushke mdb@ESD.3Com.COM