Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!labrea!polya!max From: max@polya.Stanford.EDU (Max Hailperin) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: history of emacs and lisps Summary: multics emacs in maclisp predates scheme, right? Message-ID: <5484@polya.Stanford.EDU> Date: 5 Dec 88 16:39:03 GMT References: <8812030543.AA12348@theory.LCS.MIT.EDU> <8812031540.AA00290@toucan.LCS.MIT.EDU> Reply-To: mxh@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU (Max Hailperin) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 17 >> Forgive my stupidity on this answer - but wasn't EMACS originally written in >> Lisp, like way way back. (i.e. before we were scheme'ing) >EMACS was first written in TECO. While it is of course true that EMACS was originally a bunch of MIT TECO [note that MIT TECO is not the same as DEC TECO] macros (that's where the "MACS" part of the name comes from, if my memory serves me), I believe there is some grain of truth in the original posting. The second implementation of EMACS, very early on, was in Maclisp -- Multics EMACS. Unless I've got my history muddled, Multics EMACS does predate Scheme. Therefore, there is indeed a historical grounding for the use of Maclisp-family Lisps in writing EMACSes. Of course, that's far from the whole story: there's also issues like RMS's own background and tastes.