keb@cci632.cci.com (Ken Bernstein) (05/15/91)
Can someone tell me the most current version of MicroEMACS. I have a copy
of version 3.9; dated 1987, but it doesn't seem to work. Before I spend a
lot of time debugging it, I'd like to know if there is a more current version.
Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS and have an
*objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another shareware EMACS for
MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I have mentioned?
Many thanks to suppliers of usable responses.
Please do not respond to the apparent poster of this article. I mean I've
been after the sysadmin people for only six months to straighten out my
account so I can post news. Respond to the user/address below.
--
Thomas W. Banister
(somewhat intelligent mailers) twb@cci.com
(not so intelligent mailers) ...!{rit,uupsi}!cci632!twbnelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) (05/15/91)
In article <1991May14.202420.26958@cci632.cci.com> keb@cci632.cci.com (Ken Bernstein) writes:
Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS and have an
*objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another shareware EMACS for
MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I have mentioned?
Basically, it's like this: Choose Freemacs if you want the best GNU
Emacs emulation and don't need to edit files >64K. Choose MicroEMACS
if you want to be able to run the exact same program on both DOS and
Unix.
--
--russ <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Clear cutting is criminal, spiking trees is criminal, and using hyperbole of
this magnitude in a serious discussion is criminal. -- Irv Chidseyrobertsr@cs.unca.edu (Ralph Roberts) (05/15/91)
In article <NELSON.91May14222846@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) writes: >In article <1991May14.202420.26958@cci632.cci.com> keb@cci632.cci.com (Ken Bernstein) writes: > > Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS and have an > *objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another shareware EMACS for > MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I have mentioned? > >Basically, it's like this: Choose Freemacs if you want the best GNU >Emacs emulation and don't need to edit files >64K. Choose MicroEMACS >if you want to be able to run the exact same program on both DOS and >Unix. I agree! Dr. Mark Boyd and I have just spent the past several months immersed in GNU, Freemacs, MicroEmacs and several comercial variants while writing THE UNIX DESKTOP GUIDE TO EMACS (out in August from Howard W. Sams). In my personal setup (I'm a full-time writer) I have both a Unix system and several DOS boxes. I use Freemacs on DOS and GNU on Unix. If there is a DOS file > 64K to edit, just ship it over to the Unix side ;-). So, for what it's worth, there you have my preference. --Ralph -- Ralph Roberts author@cs.unca.edu | The Desktop Guide to Emacs Asheville, N.C. | Compute!'s Computer Viruses (704) 252-9515 | The Veteran's Guide To Benefits (704) 255-8719 (fax) | + 17 other books & 1000s of articles
neves@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (David Neves) (05/16/91)
JOVE will edit files greater than 64K. -- neves@ils.nwu.edu Institute for the Learning Sciences, 1890 Maple, Evanston Il 60201
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (05/16/91)
To answer the question about memacs version, I just downloaded 3.10 from the Portal archives and I think it was at least a year old. Not sure but definitely not within the last few months. I have heard a rumor that 3.11 is released or about to be released but that is only indistinct muttering and could be the wind in the trees... Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com 3.10 looks REAL good
john@gna.axis-design.fr (John Hughes) (05/17/91)
In article <NELSON.91May14222846@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes: In article <1991May14.202420.26958@cci632.cci.com> keb@cci632.cci.com (Ken Bernstein) writes: Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS and have an *objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another shareware EMACS for MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I have mentioned? Basically, it's like this: Choose Freemacs if you want the best GNU Emacs emulation and don't need to edit files >64K. Choose MicroEMACS if you want to be able to run the exact same program on both DOS and Unix. Well, maybe. But on my cheap XT clone Freemacs keeps hanging, so I stick with the horrid Micro Emacs (well, not realy, now I have Vpix (dos under Unix) so I'm going to use Gnu Emacs, just whip up something to insert & remove those stupid CR's when I load'n'save). John Hughes
nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) (05/17/91)
In article <JOHN.91May16230345@gna.axis-design.fr> john@gna.axis-design.fr (John Hughes) writes:
Well, maybe. But on my cheap XT clone Freemacs keeps hanging, ...
How about reporting it to me as a bug? Unreported bugs don't get fixed --
I'm not clarivoyant.
--
--russ <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Clear cutting is criminal, spiking trees is criminal, and using hyperbole of
this magnitude in a serious discussion is criminal. -- Irv Chidseyrandall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson) (05/17/91)
Originally it was written: > Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS > and have an *objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another > shareware EMACS for MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I > have mentioned? > Apparently not. See below. (Other folks are quoted using %, names omitted to avoid getting personal about this sort of thing :-) <person A> % Basically, it's like this: Choose Freemacs if you want the best GNU % Emacs emulation and don't need to edit files >64K. Choose % MicroEMACS if you want to be able to run the exact same program on % both DOS and Unix. <person B> % Well, maybe. But on my cheap XT clone Freemacs keeps hanging, so I % sick with the horrid Micro Emacs (well, not realy, now I have Vpix % (dos under Unix) so I'm going to use Gnu Emacs, just whip up % something to insert & remove those stupid CR's when I load'n'save). I think that it is terribly unfair to describe MicroEMACS as "horrid." In these modern days, many folks think that GNU EMACS is the only definition of the editor. I beg to differ. While I use GNU EMACS all the time on the Sparcs hereabouts, the "emacs" I first learned was a set of "editing macros" that worked with TECO on a PDP-11 and lisp was nowhere to be found. In the mean time there have been many different native implementations of EMACS using different approaches and having different features. FREEMACS is apparently fairly similar to GNU EMACS, with the limitation of 64K. MicroEMACS is a good solid EMACS that runs on lots of machines and doesn't have the 64K limit, but doesn't try to emulate the GNU dialect and the lisp extension language. MicroEMACS does have a good extension language and lots of folks are happy with it. A third widely used MSDOS alternative is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of EMACS), which isn't as extensible but is fast and small and handles more than 64K. The facts are that one's preference in EMACS implementations is a religious issue for most folks. The thing to do is to go grab any or all of these from archive sites on the net and try them out. Use the one that you like best or another if you prefer it. The IEEE POSIX.2 standards group looked into whether the EMACS editor should be included in the standard the way that the vi editor was included. The overwhelming response from the EMACS community was that it should NOT be standardised. Part of this was because there were and are so many variants that one couldn't find a very large common ground out there.
dan@mdbs.uucp (Daniel Lawrence) (05/17/91)
In article <1991May14.202420.26958@cci632.cci.com> keb@cci632.cci.com (Ken Bernstein) writes: > Can someone tell me the most current version of MicroEMACS. I have a copy >of version 3.9; dated 1987, but it doesn't seem to work. Before I spend a >lot of time debugging it, I'd like to know if there is a more current version. Many people are using version 3.9 of MicroEMACS with no problems. Please try to be more specific when you make a statement like this, under what machine/OS does it fail and how does it fail. Also where did you get this version.... a lot of people hack at it and redistribute, not always maintining its functionality. The current distribution version is 3.10 and is available from midas.mgmt.purdue.edu for anonymous FTP outside the hours 8 am to 5pm weekdays (central time). Version 3.11 is in BETA test right now. > Does anyone have experience with both Freemacs and MicroEMACS and have an >*objective* opinion of the two? Or, is there another shareware EMACS for >MS-DOS boxes that is superior to the two that I have mentioned? Well, I would be hard pressed to call me objective.... Freemacs is an MSDOS editor written in assembly code and is very fast. It is built around a language called MINT and is easily extensable using that language. It edits files up to 64K in length. It has very good support (Russ Nelson is on the net and active). MicroEMACS is a very portable editor, running on many different platforms. It has an extention language, and can be customized in many ways. It is written in C and can be easily ported to new machines. I support this editor here and on my BBS. > Thomas W. Banister > (somewhat intelligent mailers) twb@cci.com > (not so intelligent mailers) ...!{rit,uupsi}!cci632!twb Daniel Lawrence voice: (317) 742-5153 arpa: mdbs!dan@ee.ecn.purdue.edu The Programmer's Room Fido: 1:201/10 - (317) 742-5533
ehorne@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Eric) (05/18/91)
I think that EMACS is the best editor ever made ... for Unix. But on the PC side, there is a program called QEDIT, which will edit files bigger the 64K, and has full on-line help and menuing system. I really really like it - all keys are definable. Currently I have a map that is similar to the Turbo Editor keys, but you can redefine it any way you want. Isn't Freemacs/ Micro Emacs a disk/memory hog just like the Unix Version? Anyone else use QEDIT? Check it out sometime, it is really nifty. -Eric
nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) (05/18/91)
In article <28342a28.48a8@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> ehorne@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Eric) writes:
Isn't Freemacs ... a disk/memory hog just like the Unix Version?
Not that I know of. The executable plus all the MINT code is only 200 KB,
and that includes Fortran-mode, Lisp-mode, and Mail-mode. Typically,
when I shell out to DOS, Freemacs only takes 120 KB (not all the MINT
code is loaded by default).
--
--russ <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Clear cutting is criminal, spiking trees is criminal, and using hyperbole of
this magnitude in a serious discussion is criminal. -- Irv Chidseyrandall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson) (05/18/91)
In article <28342a28.48a8@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>, Eric Horne <ehorne@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> writes: >Isn't Freemacs/ Micro Emacs a disk/memory hog just like the Unix Version? No, and neither is JOVE. For that matter, the part of GE where I used to work used MicroEMACS on all its systems (including DOS, VMS, and UN*X). There is no single "Unix version." There are other implementations of EMACS for DOS as well as those mentioned here, but I haven't used them and I try to avoid wild speculation.
r3jjs@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU (Jeremy J Starcher) (05/19/91)
In article <28342a28.48a8@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> ehorne@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Eric) writes: >Anyone else use QEDIT? Check it out sometime, it is really nifty. I use it once in a while.. we have it at work and such.. From what I"ve seen it *is* great, although I'd rather use the same editor on all the machines I use (Atari, IBM, unix, Macintosh, etc) so I tend to stay with the Emacs clones so I don't get too confused. -- --------------------------+--------------------------------------------------- Jeremy J Starcher ! No programmer programs in LOGO after reaching r3jjs@vax1.cc.uakron.edu ! age 14... r3jjs@akronvm.bitnet !
dan@mdbs.uucp (Daniel Lawrence) (05/21/91)
In article <JOHN.91May16230345@gna.axis-design.fr> john@gna.axis-design.fr (John Hughes) writes: >Well, maybe. But on my cheap XT clone Freemacs keeps hanging, so I >stick with the horrid Micro Emacs (well, not realy, now I have Vpix >(dos under Unix) so I'm going to use Gnu Emacs, just whip up >something to insert & remove those stupid CR's when I load'n'save). > >John Hughes Well, if you add the following to your emacs.rc file for that horrid MicroEMACS: set $lterm 10 it will do exactly that, translating <LF> to <RET><LF> on reading and translating <RET><LF> to <LF> on writing. (Any version from 3.10 forward). Daniel Lawrence voice: (317) 742-5153 arpa: mdbs!dan@ee.ecn.purdue.edu The Programmer's Room Fido: 1:201/10 - (317) 742-5533