Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu!lum From: lum@armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lum Johnson) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: Origin of term "Emacs" Keywords: Etymology, Emacs Message-ID: <57187@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 9 Aug 89 16:10:18 GMT References: <2481@orion.cf.uci.edu> Reply-To: Lum Johnson Organization: The Ohio State University, IRCC/CIS Joint Computing Laboratory Lines: 35 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." -------