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."
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