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Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393742] Thu, 23 April 2020 15:34 Go to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson

Dear alt.folklore.computers,

Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
the like.

Or if predating GNU Emacs is too restrictive, manuals of implementations
that parallel it to some degree -- though not forks like XEmacs.

I'm thinking of things like Lisp Machine manuals, I guess. Where do I
do I start?


--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393743 is a reply to message #393742] Thu, 23 April 2020 18:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:
> Dear alt.folklore.computers,
>
> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
> the like.
>
> Or if predating GNU Emacs is too restrictive, manuals of implementations
> that parallel it to some degree -- though not forks like XEmacs.
>
> I'm thinking of things like Lisp Machine manuals, I guess. Where do I
> do I start?
>

Start here, perhaps:

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/multics/
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393749 is a reply to message #393742] Thu, 23 April 2020 22:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: drb

> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
> the like.

Prime EMACS goes back to at least '82, so at least 2-3 years
before GNU emacs.

Some documentation for Prime EMACS is here:

https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ext% 20Writing%20Guide%20Rev%2019.4%20DOC5025-2LA%201986.pdf

https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ref% 20Guide%20Rev%2021%20DOC5026-2LA%201988%20.pdf

https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Prim er%20Rev%2018.3%20IDR6107%201982.pdf

De
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393750 is a reply to message #393749] Fri, 24 April 2020 08:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andy Leighton is currently offline  Andy Leighton
Messages: 203
Registered: July 2012
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Senior Member
On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:03:03 -0500, Dennis Boone <drb@ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
>> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
>> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
>> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
>> the like.
>
> Prime EMACS goes back to at least '82, so at least 2-3 years
> before GNU emacs.
>
> Some documentation for Prime EMACS is here:
>
> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ext% 20Writing%20Guide%20Rev%2019.4%20DOC5025-2LA%201986.pdf
>
> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ref% 20Guide%20Rev%2021%20DOC5026-2LA%201988%20.pdf
>
> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Prim er%20Rev%2018.3%20IDR6107%201982.pdf

Gosling emacs (which was the first emacs I used) has some material on
archive.org - although ISTR it being pretty rudimentary.

https://archive.org/details/gosling-emacs/page/n21/mode/2up

There is still some hemlock stuff around
https://www.cons.org/cmucl/hemlock/index.html

EINE/ZWEI/Zmacs? FINE? Edmacs? edwin? Z? Montgomery's emacs?
Zimmerman's emacs? Your google search is as good as mine. Actually
for a lot of them I would guess documentation was always pretty
rudimentary.

--
Andy Leighton => andyl@azaal.plus.com
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
- Douglas Adams
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393756 is a reply to message #393750] Sat, 25 April 2020 05:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson

Thank you Scott for an interesting link.

On 24/04/2020 8:08 pm, Andy Leighton wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:03:03 -0500, Dennis Boone <drb@ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
>>> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
>>> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
>>> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
>>> the like.
>>
>> Prime EMACS goes back to at least '82, so at least 2-3 years
>> before GNU emacs.
>>
>> Some documentation for Prime EMACS is here:
>>
>> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ext% 20Writing%20Guide%20Rev%2019.4%20DOC5025-2LA%201986.pdf
>>
>> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Ref% 20Guide%20Rev%2021%20DOC5026-2LA%201988%20.pdf
>>
>> https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/generalos/EMACS%20Prim er%20Rev%2018.3%20IDR6107%201982.pdf

Thank you, that's interesting.

> Gosling emacs (which was the first emacs I used) has some material on
> archive.org - although ISTR it being pretty rudimentary.
>
> https://archive.org/details/gosling-emacs/page/n21/mode/2up
>
> There is still some hemlock stuff around
> https://www.cons.org/cmucl/hemlock/index.html
>
> EINE/ZWEI/Zmacs? FINE? Edmacs? edwin? Z? Montgomery's emacs?
> Zimmerman's emacs? Your google search is as good as mine. Actually
> for a lot of them I would guess documentation was always pretty
> rudimentary.

I am more interested in pre-GNU/Gosling Emacs, or alternatives that
weren't developed for Unix. The Zmacs manual linked to from WP is
gone;

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ti/explorer/2243192-0001A_Zmacs_Jun 87.pdf

it's 404 now. But apparently the same document can be found on
archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_tiexplorern87_15763932 /mode/2up

Page 34 (of the pdf) has a screenshot of the typeout window which isn't
present in "modern" Emacsen.

When I started on my manual hunt, I thought Eine and Zwei were offshots
of GNU Emacs. I could have read WikiPedia earlier to know that I was
wrong.

WP sais Eine was the first Emacs like editor, and it's written in Lisp
Machine Lisp; I thought the first such Emacs was Multics Emacs, written
in MacLisp. WP isn't detailed enough to be conclusive; it lists the
Eine thesis in 1979, and Multics Emacs in 1978; but a thesis follows an
implementation (usually) so indeed Eine might be older.

---

As for the others you mentioned, I'll look them up too; I did not know
what names to search for; thank you.

--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393788 is a reply to message #393742] Mon, 27 April 2020 19:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rich Alderson is currently offline  Rich Alderson
Messages: 489
Registered: August 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:

> Dear alt.folklore.computers,

> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
> the like.

> Or if predating GNU Emacs is too restrictive, manuals of implementations
> that parallel it to some degree -- though not forks like XEmacs.

> I'm thinking of things like Lisp Machine manuals, I guess. Where do I
> do I start?

Start at dspace.mit.edu, and search for "emacs" in the box. You'll find
Cicarelli's paper on implementing EMACS, Stallman's EMACS user manuals for ITS
and TENEX/TOPS-20 (which MIT referred to as "TWENEX", misleadingly), and other
early early gems. Read the TECO manuals, too.

Old .signature file:

Rich Alderson Last LOTS Tops-20 Systems Programmer, 1984-1991
Current maintainer, MIT TECO EMACS (v. 170)

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393821 is a reply to message #393742] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
usenet is currently offline  usenet
Messages: 556
Registered: May 2013
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Senior Member
On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 03:34:52 +0800, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson
<johann@myrkraverk.invalid> wrote:
> Dear alt.folklore.computers,
>
> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
> the like.
>
> Or if predating GNU Emacs is too restrictive, manuals of implementations
> that parallel it to some degree -- though not forks like XEmacs.

Probably the first Emacs documentation was Eugene Ciccarelli's
AI Memo #447: An Introduction to the Emacs Editor, dated January 1978.

ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-447.pd f

an HTMLized version:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110723033542/http://www.burlin gtontelecom.net/~ashawley/gnu/emacs/doc/emacs-1978.html

ITS had a hypertext help system known as INFO; it was ported to Tenex and then
to TOPS-20. Along with operating system commands and system calls, there were
INFO files for Emacs. There was also a chart file with the default key bindings
(i.e., associated functions) for all the control- and meta- characters. Like
many, I also used the "apropos" function to search function descriptions. In
those days I never saw or used a paper manual for Emacs.

Of historical interest is:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history /pdp-11/teco/itsteco/tecord.info

This is a reference file for ITSTECO, the enviroment where Emacs was first
created. At MIT on their ITS systems, what was "DEC standard TECO" evolved well
beyond a programmable text editor to become a tool for writing programmable text
editors. Take particular note of "^R mode," an early implementation of what was
called in those days "real time" editing -- i.e., displaying the results of
edits as they occurred -- which we now know as WYSIWYG and take for granted.

By the mid-1970s, even as Stallman was writing the first version of his editing
macros, macros that ran on DEC's TECO were making the rounds of DEC
sites, offering a similar and simpler version of ^R mode. Even though they had
just a handful of basic commands, they made it easy to step through a file line
by line to make changes. One could always quit the macro to perform more
complex editing with TECO commands. These macros worked particularly well on
video terminals.
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393822 is a reply to message #393750] Tue, 28 April 2020 16:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
usenet is currently offline  usenet
Messages: 556
Registered: May 2013
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On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 07:08:22 -0500, Andy Leighton <andyl@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:03:03 -0500, Dennis Boone <drb@ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
>>> Where can I get manuals for old Emacs implementations? The ones that
>>> predate GNU Emacs. If I search for "emacs history manuals" I only get
>>> manuals about extensions in current emacs that have command history and
>>> the like.
>
> EINE/ZWEI/Zmacs? FINE? Edmacs? edwin? Z? Montgomery's emacs?
> Zimmerman's emacs?

FINE (Fine Is Not Emacs) was a Emacs work-alike text editor written in BLISS-10
for TOPS-10. The source can be found on Github. As the name suggests, it's not
really an Emacs clone, as it lacks an underlying programming environment and
thus is not as extensible.
Re: Manuals from various Emacsen? [message #393889 is a reply to message #393821] Fri, 01 May 2020 02:46 Go to previous message
usenet is currently offline  usenet
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Senior Member
On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:10:27 GMT, usenet@only.tnx (Questor) wrote:
> There was also a chart file with the default key bindings
> (i.e., associated functions) for all the control- and meta- characters.

Here's one version of the Emacs chart, intended to be printed in landscape and
suitable for adorning any cubicle wall:

http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/source/Multics/doc/subsys tem/emacs/emacs.wall-chart.info
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