Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bbn!jr@bbn.com
From: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: MIT Teco manual sought
Summary: more TECO folklore
Message-ID: <50269@bbn.COM>
Date: 2 Jan 90 16:41:05 GMT
References: <1372@sunquest.UUCP> <6427@wpi.wpi.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA
Lines: 32
In-reply-to: aej@wpi.wpi.edu (Allan E Johannesen)

In article <6427@wpi.wpi.edu>, aej@wpi (Allan E Johannesen) writes:
>emacs was originally written in MIT TECO under ITS (the incompatible
>timesharing system) running on KA-10's with VM hacked into the
>hardware by MIT.  MIT TECO was written in MIDAS, an MIT assembler for
>the PDP-10.  rms was supporting MIT TECO at the time ('72? '73?).
>
>I use MIT TECO to differentiate it from the Digital product, TECO,
>written in DEC's assembler, MACRO.  DEC TECO had no chance of giving
>birth to emacs.

That is right so far.  I think MIDAS and TECO both predate the PDP-10,
actually.  MIDAS was a general-purpose assembler; you could get it to
assemble anything.  I used both on the PDP-1D at BBN when I first
started here; MIDAS was used to assemble programs for the PDP-1,
Honeywell 316/516 (i.e. Arpanet IMP), and Lockheed SUE (Arpanet
Pluribus IMP).  Also, recall that before the PDP-10 DEC was a hardware
company.  TECO probably originated in DECUS before becoming the DEC
Editor for the PDP-10.  I don't know the earlier history of that
strain.

MIT's hardware included a PDP-6 before DEC did the PDP-10.

RMS indeed did a lot of things to ITS TECO in the process of making
the original EMACS.  Essentially, he made it programmable (as opposed
to "capable of executing keyboard macros", which was essentially all
that TECO did).  It is hard, at this point, to say which things were
TECO and which were EMACS; they grew up together through the mid-70's.

I wonder if this belongs in alt.folklore.computers ...
--
/jr, nee John Robinson     Life did not take over the globe by combat,
jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr          but by networking -- Lynn Margulis