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Emacs Turns 50

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  Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-10-29 04:56 +0000
    Re: Emacs Turns 50 Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> - 2026-10-29 07:30 +0000
    bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-10-29 15:00 +0000
      Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-10-29 23:09 +0000
        Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-10-30 00:49 +0000
        Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-10-30 13:26 +0000
          Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-10-30 22:37 +0000
            Re: bash on macOS Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-10-31 01:06 +0000
              Re: bash on macOS Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-02 13:42 +0000
                Re: bash on macOS Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-02 20:11 +0000
            Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-02 13:28 +0000
              Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-02 20:10 +0000
                Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-03 13:17 +0000
                  Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-03 20:39 +0000
                    Re: bash on macOS Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-04 01:02 +0000
                    Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-04 14:00 +0000
                      Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-04 21:41 +0000
                        Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-05 13:53 +0000
                          Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 19:00 +0000
                            Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-06 13:59 +0000
                              Re: bash on macOS Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-06 07:43 -0700
                                Re: bash on macOS scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-06 15:42 +0000
                                  Re: bash on macOS Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-06 10:48 -0700
                                  Re: bash on macOS Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-06 18:21 +0000
                                Re: bash on macOS Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-06 18:16 +0000
                                  Re: bash on macOS antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-11-06 21:52 +0000
                                    Re: bash on macOS Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-07 00:35 +0000
                                      Portability of 'echo -n' (was: Re: bash on macOS) Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-07 10:02 +0000
                                        Re: Portability of 'echo -n' antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-11-07 21:24 +0000
                                          Re: Portability of 'echo -n' Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-07 22:25 +0000
                                          Re: Portability of 'echo -n' Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-08 00:25 +0000
                                          Re: Portability of 'echo -n' Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-09 14:38 +0000
                                Re: bash on macOS Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-06 20:43 +0000
                              Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-06 20:42 +0000
                                Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-11-09 14:05 +0000
                                  Re: bash on macOS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-11-09 22:23 +0800
                                  Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-09 16:00 +0000
                                  Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-09 22:13 +0000
                                    Re: bash on macOS (was: Emacs Turns 50) scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-10 01:21 +0000
    Re: Emacs Turns 50 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-10-29 15:51 +0000
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-10-30 12:16 +0000
        Re: Emacs Turns 50, gpl is still a bad idea John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-10-30 17:49 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50, gpl is still a bad idea Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-10-31 01:13 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50, gpl is still a bad idea Tapiro Ubriaco <interwebs.dude@gmail.com> - 2026-10-31 18:45 +0000
            macOS Tivoization (was: Re: Emacs Turns 50) Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-01 01:17 +0000
              Re: macOS Tivoization (was: Re: Emacs Turns 50) Tapiro Ubriaco <interwebs.dude@gmail.com> - 2026-11-04 12:14 +0000
                Re: macOS Tivoization Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-04 15:12 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50, gpl is still a bad idea antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-11-01 15:06 +0000
        Re: Emacs Turns 50 Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-10-30 18:24 -0400
        Re: Emacs Turns 50 Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-11-09 22:25 +0800
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-11-09 19:58 +0000
    Re: Emacs Turns 50 Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-10-30 18:20 -0400
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> - 2026-10-30 23:45 +0000
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 John Bokma <contact@johnbokma.com> - 2026-10-31 15:28 +0100
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> - 2026-11-03 17:05 +0200
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-11-03 21:16 +0000
        Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-03 22:22 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> - 2026-11-04 07:14 +0000
            Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-04 08:24 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-11-06 01:27 +0000
    Re: Emacs Turns 50 Daniel <me@fuhgitabutit.com> - 2026-11-04 19:19 -0800
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2026-11-05 03:21 +0000
        Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 03:33 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-05 15:04 +0000
            Re: Emacs Turns 50 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-05 16:13 +0000
              Re: Emacs Turns 50 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-05 09:26 -0700
                Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 19:06 +0000
                Re: Emacs Turns 50 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-11-05 19:38 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 23:09 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-11-06 17:59 +0000
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-11-05 03:26 +0000
        Re: Emacs Turns 50 Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> - 2026-11-04 21:09 -0700
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-11-05 06:51 +0000
            Re: Emacs Turns 50 Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-05 19:17 +0000
              Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 22:59 +0000
              Re: Emacs Turns 50 Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2026-11-06 00:12 +0100
                Re: Emacs Turns 50 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-05 23:24 +0000
                Re: Emacs Turns 50 "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2026-11-08 14:26 +0000
          Re: Emacs Turns 50 Daniel <me@fuhgitabutit.com> - 2026-11-05 23:26 -0800
      Re: Emacs Turns 50 Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> - 2026-11-05 09:23 +0000

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#236528

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
> of its 50th birthday
> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.

Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.

Mind blown.

-- 
Daniel
sysop  | air & wave bbs
finger | info@bbs.airandwave.net

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#236529

In article <87mrroj77j.fsf@fuhgitabutit.com>,
Daniel  <me@fuhgitabutit.com> wrote:
>Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
>> of its 50th birthday
>> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
>> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
>> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
>> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.
>
>Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
>wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
>twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.
>
>Mind blown.
>

Well, Unix, of course.
-- 
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

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#236532

On 5 Nov 2026 03:21:56 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

> There aren't many packages in the wild today that can claim such
> longevity and success.
>
> Well, Unix, of course.

There is not a single line of original Bell Labs/AT&T code in any
current Free software *nix system (BSD or Linux).

AT&T launched a lawsuit to make sure of that.

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#236548

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>On 5 Nov 2026 03:21:56 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>
>> There aren't many packages in the wild today that can claim such
>> longevity and success.
>>
>> Well, Unix, of course.
>
>There is not a single line of original Bell Labs/AT&T code in any
>current Free software *nix system (BSD or Linux).

Nonsense.

>
>AT&T launched a lawsuit to make sure of that.

Which they lost, handily.

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#236550

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>On 5 Nov 2026 03:21:56 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>
>>> There aren't many packages in the wild today that can claim such
>>> longevity and success.
>>>
>>> Well, Unix, of course.
>>
>>There is not a single line of original Bell Labs/AT&T code in any
>>current Free software *nix system (BSD or Linux).
>
>Nonsense.
>
>>
>>AT&T launched a lawsuit to make sure of that.
>
>Which they lost, handily

My bad, I was referring to the SCO lawsuit.  The AT&T
BSD lawsuit resulted in BSD adding additional copyright
text to certain source files crediting AT&T.

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#236551

On 11/5/26 09:13, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>> Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>> On 5 Nov 2026 03:21:56 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>>
>>>> There aren't many packages in the wild today that can claim such
>>>> longevity and success.
>>>>
>>>> Well, Unix, of course.
>>>
>>> There is not a single line of original Bell Labs/AT&T code in any
>>> current Free software *nix system (BSD or Linux).
>>
>> Nonsense.
>>
>>>
>>> AT&T launched a lawsuit to make sure of that.
>>
>> Which they lost, handily
> 
> My bad, I was referring to the SCO lawsuit.  The AT&T
> BSD lawsuit resulted in BSD adding additional copyright
> text to certain source files crediting AT&T.

The problem (as I see it) is that Unix was originally distributed for 
basically the cost of the distribution media. I guess there were 
restrictions of re-distribution. Later on AT&T tried to convert it into 
a for-profit product, but the cat had already left the barn at that point.

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#236554

On Thu, 5 Nov 2026 09:26:46 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> The problem (as I see it) is that Unix was originally distributed
> for basically the cost of the distribution media. I guess there were
> restrictions of re-distribution.

It was always distributed under sundry restrictions on what you could
do with it. Then with UNIX v7, the permission for study and classroom
use was *removed*, just as the “Lions Book” was becoming popular. So
suddenly it was no longer legal to have that book.

> Later on AT&T tried to convert it into a for-profit product, but the
> cat had already left the barn at that point.

Oh, I’m sure they did make some decent money licensing it to the UNIX
vendors -- enough to fund continuing development of System III,
followed by all the System V releases. (What happened to “System IV”
... ?)

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#236559

On Thu, 5 Nov 2026 09:26:46 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> The problem (as I see it) is that Unix was originally distributed for
> basically the cost of the distribution media. I guess there were
> restrictions of re-distribution. Later on AT&T tried to convert it into 
a
> for-profit product, but the cat had already left the barn at that point.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix

AT&T's status as a monopoly came with restrictions and selling software 
wasn't included in what they could do. It was a strange situation. A 
company I worked for was running a copy that fell off the back of a truck 
in Cambridge MA on their PDP-11. 

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#236576

On Thu, 05 Nov 2026 10:55:28 +0000, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

> There also is not a single line of the original Emacs in the current
> version.

Counting from TECO-based versions? ;)

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#236610

In alt.folklore.computers Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 5 Nov 2026 03:21:56 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> 
>> There aren't many packages in the wild today that can claim such
>> longevity and success.
>>
>> Well, Unix, of course.
> 
> There is not a single line of original Bell Labs/AT&T code in any
> current Free software *nix system (BSD or Linux).
> 
> AT&T launched a lawsuit to make sure of that.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch

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#236531

On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:19:28 -0800, Daniel wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> 
>> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
>> of its 50th birthday
>> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
>> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
>> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
>> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.
> 
> Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
> wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
> twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.
> 
> Mind blown.

Yeah, emacs blew my mind when I tried to use it. Then I deleted it and 
install vim.

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#236534

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:

> On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:19:28 -0800, Daniel wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>> 
>>> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
>>> of its 50th birthday
>>> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
>>> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
>>> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
>>> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.
>> 
>> Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
>> wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
>> twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.
>> 
>> Mind blown.
>
> Yeah, emacs blew my mind when I tried to use it. Then I deleted it and 
> install vim.

I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org
Mode". This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not
yet needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.

-- 
-Don_from_AZ-

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#236537

On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 21:09:32 -0700, Don_from_AZ wrote:

> I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
> circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
> primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org Mode".
> This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not yet
> needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.

I was introduced to it much later in '99 when I started work at a new 
company and some of the programmers used it. The numbers a laughingly 
small today but iirc the emacs installation required about 10 times more 
disk space than vim. It was an easy decision when you were scrambling for 
every last MB. True, vim didn't tell fortunes or play go.

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#236555

On 2026-11-05, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 21:09:32 -0700, Don_from_AZ wrote:
>
>> I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
>> circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
>> primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org Mode".
>> This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not yet
>> needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.
>
> I was introduced to it much later in '99 when I started work at a new 
> company and some of the programmers used it. The numbers a laughingly 
> small today but iirc the emacs installation required about 10 times more 
> disk space than vim. It was an easy decision when you were scrambling for 
> every last MB. True, vim didn't tell fortunes or play go.

Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping

I looked into it a couple of times, but quickly realized
that we aren't from the same planet.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  In this world there are
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  two kinds of people:
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  from incomplete data.

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#236571

On Thu, 05 Nov 2026 19:17:58 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> I looked into [Emacs] a couple of times, but quickly realized that
> we aren't from the same planet.

I’ve used a bunch of different full-screen editors over the years. I
even tried doing some work in TECO in command mode for a while (for an
employer who was paying for the account, so I thought I’d try and keep
usage costs down).

DEC was promoting EDT as a standard editor across multiple of its
operating systems. I found that painful. Then they introduced TPU
on VMS, which I liked quite a lot.

vi/vim was the standard on proprietary UNIXes, so I gritted my teeth
and put up with that for many years. Then, once Linux wiped them all
out, and I could be sure that just about any Linux distro a client
might be using would at least have the option of running Emacs, I
wholeheartedly switched to that.

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#236577

On 11/5/26 20:17, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2026-11-05, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 21:09:32 -0700, Don_from_AZ wrote:
>>
>>> I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
>>> circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
>>> primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org Mode".
>>> This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not yet
>>> needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.
>>
>> I was introduced to it much later in '99 when I started work at a new
>> company and some of the programmers used it. The numbers a laughingly
>> small today but iirc the emacs installation required about 10 times more
>> disk space than vim. It was an easy decision when you were scrambling for
>> every last MB. True, vim didn't tell fortunes or play go.
> 
> Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping
> 
> I looked into it a couple of times, but quickly realized
> that we aren't from the same planet.
> 

A text editor should edit text, no more. I laugh at editors
that pretend to be 'small', like vim or even nano.

Nano is 287kB. The text editor I've used since 39 years
fits in just 40kB. It's a full-screen editor that can open
multiple files at once, with cut/copy and paste between them.
I wrote it 1987 for a system that only had a line editor
at the time. It was modeled on the Rand editor of the era.
No frills. It was my first C-programming attempt, and it
shows.

Of course, there is no syntax highlighting or functions
like justification, spell checking etc. Those are delegated
to standard utilities. (As they should be!)

I've taken it with me on every new system since and still
use it every day.

Jeroen Belleman

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#236579

On Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:12:43 +0100, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

> A text editor should edit text, no more.

Emacs is an editor, not just a text editor.

I have successfully used it to patch binary files.

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#236666

On Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:12:43 +0100
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

> On 11/5/26 20:17, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> > On 2026-11-05, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 21:09:32 -0700, Don_from_AZ wrote:
> >>
> >>> I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
> >>> circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
> >>> primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org Mode".
> >>> This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not yet
> >>> needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.
> >>
> >> I was introduced to it much later in '99 when I started work at a new
> >> company and some of the programmers used it. The numbers a laughingly
> >> small today but iirc the emacs installation required about 10 times more
> >> disk space than vim. It was an easy decision when you were scrambling for
> >> every last MB. True, vim didn't tell fortunes or play go.
> > 
> > Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping
> > 
> > I looked into it a couple of times, but quickly realized
> > that we aren't from the same planet.
> > 
> 
> A text editor should edit text, no more. I laugh at editors
> that pretend to be 'small', like vim or even nano.
> 
> Nano is 287kB. The text editor I've used since 39 years
> fits in just 40kB. It's a full-screen editor that can open
> multiple files at once, with cut/copy and paste between them.
> I wrote it 1987 for a system that only had a line editor
> at the time. It was modeled on the Rand editor of the era.
> No frills. It was my first C-programming attempt, and it
> shows.
> 
> Of course, there is no syntax highlighting or functions
> like justification, spell checking etc. Those are delegated
> to standard utilities. (As they should be!)
> 
> I've taken it with me on every new system since and still
> use it every day.
> 
> Jeroen Belleman

I've never indulged in the wonders of emacs, but small text editors are
pshurely available. For DOS I think TED at 3k is small yet usable unless
you want to edit huge (>64k) text files.

-- 
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

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#236596

Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> writes:

> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:19:28 -0800, Daniel wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>> 
>>>> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
>>>> of its 50th birthday
>>>> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
>>>> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
>>>> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
>>>> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.
>>> 
>>> Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
>>> wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
>>> twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.
>>> 
>>> Mind blown.
>>
>> Yeah, emacs blew my mind when I tried to use it. Then I deleted it and 
>> install vim.
>
> I first learned to use Emacs on a Honeywell Multics machine in Phoenix
> circa 1980, so apparently only 4 years after it was born. I use it
> primarily as an editor, and for some of its packages like "Org
> Mode". This post is being written with "Gnus" under Emacs. I have not
> yet needed or had occasion to write any Lisp code myself.

I have yet to play with org mode despite the infectious eagerness
everyone displays when I hear about it in irc. And yes, gnus is
constantly in a buffer for me. For the browser, though, lynx wins out.

I've written a few tools in lisp to automate some things because lazy.

-- 
Daniel
sysop  | air & wave bbs
finger | info@bbs.airandwave.net

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#236542

On Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:19:28 -0800, Daniel wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> 
>> A brief little retrospective on the history of Emacs, on the occasion
>> of its 50th birthday
>> <https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/20/1145399/emacs-turns-50/>.
>> Before it was reimplemented in Lisp, the original version was written
>> in TECO, a language that I once heard characterized as bearing a
>> remarkable resemblance to transmission line noise.
> 
> Fifty years of amazing software, wow. There aren't many packages in the
> wild today that can claim such longevity and success. It was roughly
> twenty years old when I began using it - and even then it was mature.

TECO is still around. I learned it in the early 1970s. Remarkably easy to 
use, and really no different to most other editors with single character 
commands.

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