Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!amdahl!rtech!llama!daveb
From: daveb@llama.rtech.UUCP (Dave Brower)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Mince (Mince Is Not Complete Emacs)??
Message-ID: <1693@rtech.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 88 03:36:14 GMT
References: <456@xios.XIOS.UUCP>
Sender: news@rtech.UUCP
Reply-To: daveb@rtech.UUCP (Dave Brower)
Distribution: na
Organization: Relational Technology, Inc. Alameda, CA
Lines: 34

In article <456@xios.XIOS.UUCP> jim@xios.UUCP (Jim Tinkess) writes:
>A company called 'Mark Of the Unicorn' used to make a emacs style
>editor called MINCE. Are they still in business? Does anyone on the
>net use mince? I heard it was a very nice editor.
>								

MOTU is still in business, and seems to be be specializing in MacStuff
now. Their "Professional Composer" MIDI music program seems highly
regarded.  I do not believe they are presently interested in selling any
MINCEs.

I worked for a company that OEM-ed MINCE and SCRIBBLE (their
scribe-alike), and was at one point very familiar with the code: Lovely
stuff for the period it was written.  It provided you an 8 buffer emacs
with no extensibility, 2 windows only, could handle 256k files, and ran
comfortably as a 48k CP/M-80 program.  And written in BDS-C!

For the user/hacker, it came with source code for the commands (but not
the redisplay, command dispatcher or the buffer manager).  The "Program
Logic Manual" was a wonderful thing.  It was also a mixed blessing for
MOTU:  they inadvertantly found themselves running a C programming
school.  Their follow-on word processor, "The Final Word" replaced the
emacs command interface with something more object-like, and didn't come
with source.  All in all, beautifully engineered programs with features
that didn't show up elsewhere for quite a while.

Times change, however.  I would recommend real GNU, either of the
microemacs-es, or JOVE to current users.  The micros and JOVE are more
heavily featured than MINCE and have full source for free.  My
preference is micrognu ("mg"), but I am biased, having helped in its
development.

-dB
"People will do anything for a potato."
{amdahl, cpsc6a, mtxinu, ptsfa, sun, hoptoad}!rtech!daveb daveb@rtech.uucp