XYZZY
REB - Tennessee Lamb
game? Where exactly did it come from?
reb
r...@rtech.com reb%rtec...@lll-winken.llnl.GOV
h:861 Washington Westwood NJ 07675 201-666-9207
I've been warped by the rain,
driven by the snow drunk and dirty don't you know and I'm still willin'...
Bernie Cosell
}Does the word "xyzzy" have an origin earlier than the Colossal Cave adventure
}game? Where exactly did it come from?
I believe that Will just made it up [much as he made up near everything else
in Adventure]. I can ask him, but I'm really quite sure that it was just
random-letters.
/Bernie\
Jude Poole
On I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there is a road with the
name Xyyzzy or something very similar (I fly nowadays and so haven't
seen it in a while) This may be where he got the word but I have no
way of verifying it.
jpo...@ucsd.edu
jpo...@ucsd.bitnet
Mark Komarinski,,,
sorts of neat utilities for the Apple II series. IMHO, they were the best
company I saw that wrote software because you could understand what the programs
did (Most were written in Basic), and their manuals and tip books had a bunch of
hints and they even threw in a bit of humor into it. I thought it was great!
I still have some of their articles tacked up next to my Zenith.
--
Mark Komarinski - take yer pick - koma...@clutx.clarkson.edu
.bitnet
"Cassette users tip of the month - buy a disk drive" - from Dos Boss manual
Steve Lamont
>On I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there is a road with the
>name Xyyzzy or something very similar (I fly nowadays and so haven't
>seen it in a while) This may be where he got the word but I have no
>way of verifying it.
Actually it is Zzyzx Road. Whatever the hell that is.
spl (the p stands for
put a lot of miles on
the RX-7 between San
Diego and Vegas...)
--
Steve Lamont, sciViGuy (919) 248-1120 EMail: s...@ncsc.org
NCSC, Box 12732, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
"That's People's Commissioner Tirebiter -- and NOBODY'S sweetheart!"
- F. Scott Firesign
The Unknown User
In article <1990Jan18.1...@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> koma...@clutx.clarkson.edu writes:
>Does anybody know what happened to Beagle Bros., the guys who came up with all
>sorts of neat utilities for the Apple II series. IMHO, they were the best
>did (Most were written in Basic), and their manuals and tip books had ..
>hints and they even threw in a bit of humor into it. I thought it was great!
>I still have some of their articles tacked up next to my Zenith.
While this actually has nothing to do with folklore, I decided
to answer it here since this is where the original question was.
Beagle Brothers has had TREMENDOUS success with its TimeOut
series of enhancements for AppleWorks [I think the best selling software
EVER]... Now they even have screen credit for parts of AppleWorks 3.0.
They have gotten out of the BASIC enhancements, but still publish
some of them. The ones they don't publish anymore, they HAVE PUT ON THEIR
BULLETIN BOARD for people to download for free. No, I don't know the #.
I thought that their catalogs were hilarious too (the only thing
I ever bought from them was one of the posters, I think it was Peeks,
Pokes, and Pointers... which I have in front of me on the wall along with
the APPLE COMMANDS one and the 6502 Instructions one, which people gave to
me)...
Their newest catalog, alas, has gotten "really business-y looking".
They -still- include a fair # of funny cartoons though, but none of the
neat little BASIC programs written between ads.. Those were cool.
I guess their growth has gotten them to "grow up" in some people's
opinion. Alas, I liked them a lot better the way they were before. They're
still pretty neat though.
--
If you want info about a 20 meg "floptical" drive mail me. YOU CAN ALSO
GET ONE FOR --$440-- (NEW **LOWER** PRICE!) BY MAILING ME. [WE HAVE TO GET
ENOUGH PEOPLE THOUGH..Slightly higher for less people but not much]
unk...@ucscb.ucsc.edu APPLE II FOREVER APL24VR GS tips? Mail me.
unknown%darksi...@ames.arpa Please use the former address for regular use.
Sam Bassett RCD
Nope, sorry -- that's "Zyzzyx Springs Road". The road leads to
what used to be a resort with hot springs -- the developer figured that
it would be the very last entry in every atlas of the U.S., and he'd get
a lot of publicity that way -- it didn't work well enough to make the
resort a success, however.
(I used to live out that way . . .)
(This is rapidly devolving into
"alt.folklore.computers.and.other.trivia" :-)
Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 694-4792; Home: (415) 969-2644
sa...@well.sf.ca.us sa...@ames.arc.nasa.gov
<Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'
nancy nott
What does Emacs mean?
just curious,
nancy
"I love you" is just another word for death.
Mark Brown
nott) writes:
> In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
> What does Emacs mean?
Emacs
Makes
A
Computer
Slow.
Mark Brown IBM AWD / OSF | If a train station is where
The Good mbr...@osf.org | a train stops,
The Bad uunet!osf!mbrown| What happens at
The Ugly (617) 621-8981 | a work station?
Preston Briggs
>In article <21...@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, no...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (nancy
>nott) writes:
>> In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
>> What does Emacs mean?
>
>Emacs
>Makes
>A
>Computer
>Slow.
Well, that's harsh! More accurately, Extensible MACro.
My favorites were on the LISP Machine: EINE and ZWEI
Eine
Is
Not
Emacs
and
Zwei
Was
Emacs (or Eine?)
Initially
Self-recursive acronyms, plus the series iterates, in German anyway.
Pixel,,,
> In article <21...@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, no...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (nancy
> nott) writes:
>> In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
>> What does Emacs mean?
>
> Emacs
> Makes
> A
> Computer
> Slow.
Ahhh...recursion. That explains it.
> Mark Brown IBM AWD / OSF | If a train station is where
>
> The Good mbr...@osf.org | a train stops,
> The Bad uunet!osf!mbrown| What happens at
> The Ugly (617) 621-8981 | a work station?
Pixel cooleyra@clutx. clarkson.edu | bitnet
"Keep the wind in your solar sails..." --Glenn Clapp
"here log (ln) changes to a different log (log)" (no reason given) --A.Fokas
Disclaimer: opinions==mine; me<>cct
Randal Schwartz
| In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
| What does Emacs mean?
From the file etc/emacs.names in the GNU Emacs distribution:
|| From: harvard!topaz!BLUE!BRAIL@mit-eddie
|| Date: 9 Sep 85 17:25:27 EDT
|| Subject: EMACS -- What does it mean?
|| To: mit-prep!info-gn...@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU
||
|| EMACS may stand for "Editing MACroS," but some friends of mine
|| suggested some more creative definitions. Here they are. Anyone have
|| any additions?
||
|| --------
||
|| Even a
|| Master of
|| Arts
|| Comes
|| Simpler
||
|| Emacs
|| Manuals
|| Are
|| Cryptic and
|| Surreal
||
|| Energetic
|| Merchants
|| Always
|| Cultivate
|| Sales
||
|| Each
|| Manual's
|| Audience is
|| Completely
|| Stupified
||
|| Emacs
|| Means
|| A
|| Crappy
|| Screen
||
|| Eventually
|| Munches
|| All
|| Computer
|| Storage
||
|| Even
|| My
|| Aunt
|| Crashes the
|| System
||
|| Eradication of
|| Memory
|| Accomplished with
|| Complete
|| Simplicity
||
|| Elsewhere
|| Maybe
|| Alternative
|| Civilizations
|| Survive
||
|| Egregious
|| Managers
|| Actively
|| Court
|| Stallman
||
|| Esoteric
|| Malleability
|| Always
|| Considered
|| Silly
||
|| Emacs
|| Manuals
|| Always
|| Cause
|| Senility
||
|| Easily
|| Maintained with the
|| Assistance of
|| Chemical
|| Solutions
||
|| EMACS
|| MACRO
|| ACTED
|| CREDO
|| SODOM
||
|| Edwardian
|| Manifestation of
|| All
|| Colonial
|| Sins
||
|| Generally
|| Not
|| Used
||
|| Except by
|| Middle
|| Aged
|| Computer
|| Scientists
||
|| Extended
|| Macros
|| Are
|| Considered
|| Superfluous
||
|| Every
|| Mode
|| Accelerates
|| Creation of
|| Software
||
|| Elsewhere
|| Maybe
|| All
|| Commands are
|| Simple
||
|| Emacs
|| May
|| Allow
|| Customised
|| Screwups
||
|| Excellent
|| Manuals
|| Are
|| Clearly
|| Suppressed
||
|| Emetic
|| Macros
|| Assault
|| Core and
|| Segmentation
||
|| Embarrassed
|| Manual-Writer
|| Accused of
|| Communist
|| Subversion
||
|| Extensibilty and
|| Modifiability
|| Aggravate
|| Confirmed
|| Simpletons
||
|| Emacs
|| May
|| Annihilate
|| Command
|| Structures
||
|| Easily
|| Mangles,
|| Aborts,
|| Crashes and
|| Stupifies
||
|| Extraneous
|| Macros
|| And
|| Commands
|| Stink
||
|| Exceptionally
|| Mediocre
|| Algorithm for
|| Computer
|| Scientists
||
|| EMACS
|| Makes no
|| Allowances
|| Considering its
|| Stiff price
||
|| Equine
|| Mammals
|| Are
|| Considerably
|| Smaller
||
|| Embarrasingly
|| Mundane
|| Advertising
|| Cuts
|| Sales
||
|| Every
|| Moron
|| Assumes
|| CCA is
|| Superior
||
|| Exceptionally
|| Mediocre
|| Autocratic
|| Control
|| System
||
|| EMACS
|| May
|| Alienate
|| Clients and
|| Supporters
||
|| Excavating
|| Mayan
|| Architecture
|| Comes
|| Simpler
||
|| Erasing
|| Minds
|| Allows
|| Complete
|| Submission
||
|| Every
|| Male
|| Adolescent
|| Craves
|| Sex
||
|| Elephantine
|| Memory
|| Absolutely
|| Considered
|| Sine que non
||
|| Emacs
|| Makers
|| Are
|| Crazy
|| Sickos
||
|| Eenie-Meenie-Miney-Mo-
|| Macros
|| Are
|| Completely
|| Slow
||
|| Experience the
|| Mildest
|| Ad
|| Campaign ever
|| Seen
||
|| Emacs
|| Makefiles
|| Annihilate
|| C-
|| Shells
||
|| Eradication of
|| Memory
|| Accomplished with
|| Complete
|| Simplicity
||
|| Emetic
|| Macros
|| Assault
|| Core and
|| Segmentation
||
|| Epileptic
|| MLisp
|| Aggravates
|| Compiler
|| Seizures
||
|| Eleven thousand
|| Monkeys
|| Asynchronously
|| Crank out these
|| Slogans
|| -------
||
|| From: ihnss!warren@mit-eddie (Warren Montgomery)
|| Newsgroups: net.emacs
|| Subject: Re: EMACS -- What does it mean?
|| Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 09:14:24 EDT
|| Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
|| Apparently-To: emacs-netnews-distribution@mit-prep
||
|| Someone at a luncheon suggested it meant:
||
|| Evenings,
|| Mornings,
|| And a
|| Couple of
|| Saturdays
||
|| (In reference to the odd hours that went into the creation of my
|| implementation).
||
|| --
||
|| Warren Montgomery
|| ihnss!warren
|| IH ((312)-979) x2494
||
|| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 85 10:11:04 edt
|| From: inmet!to...@inmet.inmet (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) <inmet!tower@cca-unix>
|| Subject: Re: EMACS -- What does it mean?
|| To: to...@MIT-PREP.ARPA
||
|| Received: by inmet.uucp (4.12/inmet) id AA02199; Wed, 18 Sep 85 09:10:17 edt
|| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 85 09:10:17 edt
|| Message-Id: <8509181310.AA02199@inmet.uucp>
|| Uucp-Paths: {bellcore,ima,ihnp4}!inmet!tower
|| Arpa-Path: ima!inmet!to...@CCA-UNIX.ARPA
|| Organization: Intermetrics, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
|| Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739
|| /* Written 6:48 pm Sep 14, 1985 by gml@ssc-vax in inmet:net.emacs */
|| /* ---------- "Re: EMACS -- What does it mean?" ---------- */
|| Pleeeeeeeze!!! Nice try on the meaning of EMACS. I believe the
|| correct acronym is:
||
|| Emacs
|| Makes
|| All
|| Computing
|| Simple
||
|| Thank you, and Good Night
|| /* End of text from inmet:net.emacs */
||
|| From: ho95e!wcs@mit-eddie (Bill.Stewart.4K435.x0705)
|| Newsgroups: net.emacs
|| Subject: Re: EMACS -- What does it mean?
|| Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 21:43:54 EDT
|| Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
|| Apparently-To: emacs-netnews-distribution@mit-prep
||
|| > > very interesting, but what does GNU stand for ?
|| > GNU = Gnu's Not UNIX. There is also MINCE, for Mince Is Not a Complete Emacs.
|| > More recursive acronyms, anyone?
|| Many people have also seen FINE Is Not Emacs, but the one that has
|| character is THief Isn't Even Fine.
|| --
|| ## Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs
||
|| Path: mit-eddie!think!harvard!bbnccv!bbncca!linus!decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!edison!ta2
|| From: edison!ta2@mit-eddie (tom allebrandi)
|| Newsgroups: net.emacs
|| Subject: Re: Re: EMACS -- What does it mean?
|| Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 18:11:55 EDT
|| Organization: General Electric's Mountain Resort
|| Apparently-To: emacs-netnews-distribution@mit-prep
||
|| > GNU = Gnu's Not UNIX. There is also MINCE, for Mince Is Not a Complete Emacs.
|| >
|| > More recursive acronyms, anyone?
|| >
||
|| For the DEC-system-10/20: FINE - Fine Is Not Emacs.....
||
|| --
|| ...............
|| tom allebrandi 2, general electric aco, charlottesville, va
|| {decvax,duke}!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!edison!ta2
|| box 8106, charlottesville, va, 22906
|| (804) 978-5566
|| ...............
||
|| Date: Wed, 16 Oct 85 01:38:12 edt
|| From: inmet!tower (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) <inmet!tower@cca-unix>
|| Subject: more names
|| To: to...@MIT-PREP.ARPA
||
|| Received: by inmet.uucp (4.12/inmet) id AA12997; Tue, 15 Oct 85 22:31:39 edt
|| Date: Tue, 15 Oct 85 22:31:39 edt
|| Message-Id: <851016023...@inmet.uucp>
|| Uucp-Paths: {bellcore,ima,ihnp4}!inmet!tower
|| Arpa-Path: ima!inmet!to...@CCA-UNIX.ARPA
|| Organization: Intermetrics, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
|| Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739
|| /* Written 12:20 pm Oct 14, 1985 by r...@mirror.UUCP in inmet:net.emacs */
||
||
|| SINE: Sine Is Not Emacs
|| (MIT Architecture Machine Group)
||
|| EINE: Eine is Not Emacs
|| (MIT Lisp Machine)
||
|| ZWEI: Zwei Was Eine Initially
|| ("rev2" of EINE)
||
|| --
|| Rich $alz {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube} !mirror!rs
|| Mirror Systems 2067 Massachusetts Ave.
|| 617-661-0777 Cambridge, MA, 02140
|| /* End of text from inmet:net.emacs */
||
|| Path: mit-eddie!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!gatech!ulysses!pajb
|| From: ulysses!pajb@mit-eddie (Paul Bennett)
|| Newsgroups: net.emacs
|| Subject: Here we go again ...
|| Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 17:26:49 EDT
|| Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
|| Apparently-To: emacs-netnews-distribution@mit-prep
||
||
|| > EINE: Eine is Not Emacs
|| > (MIT Lisp Machine)
|| >
|| > ZWEI: Zwei Was Eine Initially
|| > ("rev2" of EINE)
||
|| DREI: DREI - Really Emacs Inside
|| (Exists only in my head)
||
|| Paul.
||
|| UUCP: {decvax,allegra,vax135,ucbvax}!ulysses!circe!pajb
|| DDD: (201) 582 7346
|| USPS: AT&T Bell Labs, Room 5E-103, Murray Hill, NJ 07974
||
|| .. I don't care WHO you are, you're not walking on the water while I'M fishing.--
|| Paul.
||
|| UUCP: {decvax,allegra,vax135,ucbvax}!ulysses!circe!pajb
|| DDD: (201) 582 7346
|| USPS: AT&T Bell Labs, Room 5E-103, Murray Hill, NJ 07974
||
|| .. I don't care WHO you are, you're not walking on the water while I'M fishing.
Just another Emacs hacker,
--
/== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III |
| mer...@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/
Nichael Cramer
>My favorites were on the LISP Machine: EINE and ZWEI
> Eine
> Is
> Not
> Emacs
>and
> Zwei
> Was
> Emacs (or Eine?)
> Initially
>Self-recursive acronyms, plus the series iterates, in German anyway.
For a Previous Employer, I had to write an easily-usable-by-VMS-and-other-
business-weenies editor (that ran on the Lispm) which was named: DRIE
DRIE
Really
Isn't
EDT
NICHAEL
(...and, yes, I know it isn't spelled right.)
Mark Crispin
>In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
>What does Emacs mean?
Editing MACroS.
Work on EMACS started in the summer of 1976. The people who worked on
it primarily at that time were Guy Steele, Richard Stallman, and Dave
Moon.
EMACS was written in TECO, but not the TECO that most people know.
Most people know a very stripped-down and bastardized TECO which Bob
Clements adapted for the DEC operating system for the PDP-6. The
original TECO was written by Dan Murphy for the PDP-1, and later
reimplemented on the PDP-6 (by, if I remember correctly, Richard
Greenblatt, Jack Holloway, and Tom Knight in a single weekend!). The
original TECO used a display scope to display the text being edited
around the editing point. It remained a source of wonder and
astonishment to the original authors of TECO that anyone ever used it
without a display screen. This TECO ran on MIT's operating system for
the PDP-6 and PDP-10, ITS (Incompatible TimeSharing).
At Stanford, a different track of display editors had developed, again
starting with the display scope on the PDP-1. The two surviving today
are TVEDIT for Tenex/TOPS-20 and E for WAITS. Richard Stallman
visited the Stanford AI Lab and was impressed by E's real-time editing
facility. When he returned to MIT, he implemented so-called "^R mode"
(a real time editing mode in TECO invoked by the CTRL/R command) in
TECO.
Although ^R mode made a whole new style of editing possible (unlike E
and TVEDIT, the default action for newly typed in text was insert
rather than replace), it was still rather primitive. The search was
for a single character only, and you would still have to go back to
TECO to do lots of things (such as read or write files!).
Two major sets of TECO macro packages (a "macro" is a program, written
in TECO, stored in a TECO register) developed; TECMAC and TMACS.
TECMAC was a more real-time editor, while TMACS had a much richer set
of functionality including named commands. Just about everybody had
their own customizations on top of these packages.
This was the situation when I worked at MIT in the summer of '76. I
had brought with me my own favorite TECO-style editor, which, although
it had only the functionality of primitive DEC TECO, had two
interesting facilities: (1) it compiled all TECO programs (including
commands) prior to execution, and (2) it had multi-character register
names, which greatly increased the number of possible TECO registers
to virtually infinite.
Richard Stallman implemented the latter in TECO as part of the EMACS
project, which was originally intended as a replacement for both
TECMAC and TMACS. By New Years in 1977 EMACS had made significant
inroads against TECMAC/TMACS; and in another year or so the older
editors had both succumbed to software rot.
Michael McMahon was irritated at the editor situation for Tenex and
TOPS-20; the alternatives at that time ranged from TVEDIT to QED to TV
(a DEC TOPS-20 TECO-like program with display terminal functionality
much like that of the 1964 MIT TECO). He undertook the long and
laborious task of porting MIT EMACS from ITS to Tenex and TOPS-20, and
by 1978 EMACS was running on a small set of Tenex and TOPS-20 systems
at MIT, Stanford, and SRI. Richard Stallman did heroic efforts to
propagate the mass (and free) distribution to just about every TOPS-20
system in the work.
This guaranteed EMACS a place in the sun. Without McMahon and
Stallman's efforts we'd probably all be using vi or worse today.
In the 1980's, TOPS-20 had reached its zenith. Because of horribly
high maintenance costs (DEC was trying to shut down the product line
in favor of VAX/VMS, and finally did in 1983), many sites were
migrating from TOPS-20. Not trusting DEC, many sites picked UNIX as
their migration path instead of VMS. There were a few critical
TOPS-20 tools which "must" be ported before the migration; and one of
those was EMACS.
The rest is well-known...
_____ ____ ---+--- /-\ Mark Crispin Atheist & Proud
_|_|_ _|_ || ___|__ / / 6158 Lariat Loop NE R90/6 pilot
|_|_|_| /|\-++- |=====| / / Bainbridge Island, WA "Gaijin! Gaijin!"
--|-- | |||| |_____| / \ USA 98110-2098 "Gaijin ha doko ka?"
/|\ | |/\| _______ / \ +1 (206) 842-2385 "Niichan ha gaijin."
/ | \ | |__| / \ / \ m...@CAC.Washington.EDU "Chigau. Gaijin ja nai.
kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita Omae ha gaijin darou."
sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru "Iie, boku ha nihonjin."
uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru "Souka. Yappari gaijin!"
Steve Lamont
>What does Emacs mean?
It is one of those clever recursive acronyms:
EMACS Makes All Computers Slow
:-)
spl (the p stands for
press
ctrl-meta-left-elbow
to change all
occurrences of foo to
bar...)
Sam Bassett RCD
Then there was the CP/M word processing program (later mis-named
"Perfect Writer") from Mark of the Unicorn:
M I N C E
I s o o m
N t m a
C p s
E l
e
t
e
Matthew E Cross
Evil
Manifestation
Also
Called
Satan
P.S. - I love EMACS (I'm using it now!) I just like the acronym!
It's Mr. Boyo to you Dylan
"Emacs Makes A Computer Slow". It's recursive, too!
Insert :-)'s where you feel they are needed.
--
Skate UNIX
J. Eric Townsend -- uunet!sugar!flatline!jet -- j...@flatline.lonestar.org
EastEnders mailing list -- east...@flatline.lonestar.org
Mike Morris
>In article <61...@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> ju...@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Jude Poole) writes:
>>On I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there is a road with the
>>name Xyyzzy or something very similar (I fly nowadays and so haven't
>>seen it in a while) This may be where he got the word but I have no
>>way of verifying it.
>
>Actually it is Zzyzx Road. Whatever the hell that is.
One day as I was driving home from an Amateur Radio Convention in L.V. (anybody
here remember SAROC?), a friend of mine and I decided we had a few extra
hours to kill, so we did some exploring. Zzyzx road north of the freeway
goes nowhere - a dead end maybe 1/4 mile from the ramp. Southbound the
pavement ends the same 1/4 mile, but a well maintained (in '80 or so) dirt
road goes for about 30 minutes and with just around a blind turn ends
at a barbed-wire-and-2x4s gate. My '69 Rambler, at that time, had a cracked
exhaust manifold and the noise brought a gentleman out of a run-down house
trailer with a shotgun in his hands (this was about 3pm or so). Don and I
were smart enough to make no sudden moves and after we explained we were
just curious what Zzyzx was, the gentleman put the gun down and invited us
in for coffee & cokes. It turns out that Zzyzx was a '30s hot springs
resort that went broke, and the gentleman lived there in a trailer as a
gurad for the buildings, which were in surprisingly good shape (at least
the exteriors - Don and I didn't ask if we could get a tour, and none
was offered). Supposedly a fleet of busses ran from LA's Union Rail
Station to ZZyzx and back, and the 30s movie stars were the most frequent
guests. There is no ACpower, no telephone, and communications is limited
to commercial two-way radio (nowadays cellular phones would work there too),
and CB.
All this is 9-10 year old memory, and unverified.
Mike Morris Internet: Mor...@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov
Misslenet: 34.12 N, 118.02 W
#Include quote.cute.standard Bellnet: 818-447-7052
#Include disclaimer.standard Radionet: WA6ILQ
Jeff d'Arcy
> What does Emacs mean?
j...@flatline.UUCP (It's "Mr. Boyo" to you Dylan):
> "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow". It's recursive, too!
In a similar vein, how about "Eats Memory And Compromises Security"?
Jeff d'Arcy OS/Network Software Engineer jda...@encore.com
Encore has provided the medium, but the message remains my own
Wm E. Davidsen Jr
| Does the word "xyzzy" have an origin earlier than the Colossal Cave adventure
| game? Where exactly did it come from?
I don't know where it came from, but my daughter was once playing
another adventure game (Isle of {something}) and typed it. She got back
the response "We do not recycle used magic words from other games."
Broke us up.
--
bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
davi...@sixhub.uucp ...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
"Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon
Steve Masticola
> game? Where exactly did it come from?
It may be just coincidence, but on the road from Las Vegas to Barstow,
CA are several large green signs for "Zzyzx Road." I believe the
actual road was just rocks and dirt. Giving someone directions could
be problematical due to nonlinear pronounciation :-)
- Steve.
Kevin J Podsiadlik
>>Makes
>>A
>>Computer
>>Slow.
>
>Well, that's harsh! More accurately, Extensible MACro.
>
>My favorites were on the LISP Machine: EINE and ZWEI
>
> Eine
> Is
> Not
> Emacs
>and
> Zwei
> Was
> Emacs (or Eine?)
> Initially
>
One of my professors has taken up a liking to these kinds of acronyms.
His favorite: XINU
Xinu
Is
Not
Unix
My personal favorite is Douglas Hofstadter's TATO:
Tato (And Tato Only)
Double your recursion, double your pleasure...
Side note (intended to get the line of discussion even further off the track):
Why Tato? Simple. He wanted to use it in conjunction with a non-recursively
acronymed function "hotpo" (Half Or Triple Plus One; N/2 for even N, 3N+1
for odd N). Thus he could write a Lisp statement:
(hotpo tato)
Arrrrrrghhhhhhh......
Kevin Podsiadlik g...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
"There. That looks good. We should have this .sig ready by Valentine's Day."
Peter da Silva
> > What does Emacs mean?
> Emacs > Makes > A > Computer > Slow.
Actually, if you look in /usr/include/errno.h, you'll see that it's a UNIX
error code: EMACS -- Editor Too Large.
--
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva <pe...@sugar.hackercorp.com>
`-_-'
'U` "I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere"
David A. Sinclair
>
> I don't know where it [xyzzy] came from, but my daughter was once playing
>another adventure game (Isle of {something}) and typed it. She got back
>the response "We do not recycle used magic words from other games."
>Broke us up.
Not bad. Typing in 'PLUGH' in Level 9's Snowball invoked a robot which
accused you of insanity and then threw the player into a padded cell in
the game. Most level 9 games gave some sort of response to the old
Crowther and Woods magic words.
Georg Wittig
>In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
>What does Emacs mean?
My favorite one is the following:
Escape Meta Alt Control Shift
No, I'm not the author of that; someone posted it in the usenet some months ago.
--
Georg Wittig GMD-Z1.BI P.O. Box 1240 D-5205 St. Augustin 1 (West Germany)
email: wit...@gmdzi.uucp phone: (+49 2241) 14-2294
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" (Kris Kristofferson)
Scott Yelich
> In a similar vein, how about "Eats Memory And Compromises Security"?
I always heard it was ``Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage''
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott D. Yelich sc...@cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1]
After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Randal Schwartz
| One of my professors has taken up a liking to these kinds of acronyms.
| His favorite: XINU
|
| Xinu
| Is
| Not
| Unix
One of the projects inside Tektronix was called "TINA" for "This Is No
Acronym".
And, another document I had read at Tek mentioned the use of "TLAs",
which was defined in the footnote (in tiny print) as "Three Letter
Acronyms".
Just another person who got their college education at Tek :-),
Dale Smith
Eight
Megs
And
Continuous
Swapping
--
Dale P. Smith
da...@ncoast.org
ncoast!da...@hal.cwru.edu
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!dale
Robert Menke
Megabytes Mystifying
And --or-- Arcane
Constantly Command
Swapping Syntax
"When you're serious about having | Robert Menke
fun, it's not much fun at all!" | r...@OCF.berkeley.edu
-- Calvin & Hobbes | Robert...@bmug.fidonet.org
TEAM CS -- Making Tomorrow's Mistakes Today!
The Polymath
}| Does the word "xyzzy" have an origin earlier than the Colossal Cave adventure
}| game? Where exactly did it come from?
}
} I don't know where it came from, but my daughter was once playing
}another adventure game (Isle of {something}) and typed it. She got back
}the response "We do not recycle used magic words from other games."
}Broke us up.
There's a similar message in the original ADVENT (only 6 character program
names under RSTS/E). If you typed in "abracadabra" it responded with
"Nice try, but that is an old, worn-out magic word."
--
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, holl...@ttidca.tti.com) Illegitimis non
Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum
3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483
Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe
Kevin Carothers
[---]
>On I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there is a road with the
I thought that a guy from Florida wrote the original "adventure"
game in BASIC. His name was "Scott Adams" Even if this is
(in)complete heresay I would be interested in knowing whatever
happened to this guy.
--
Kevin Carothers {philabs,csun,psivax}!ttidca!kevin
~
Tom Frauenhofer
Yelich) (and others who did not get an attribution) writes:
>> > > What does Emacs mean?
>> > "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow". It's recursive, too!
>> In a similar vein, how about "Eats Memory And Compromises Security"?
>I always heard it was ``Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage''
My favorite is "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping". Another is
"Escape-Meta-Control-Alt-Shift". One friend says it means "Eventually Might
Alter Console Screen", but I didn't like that one all that much.
Thomas V. Frauenhofer ...!rutgers!rochester!cci632!ccird7!tvf *or*
...!attctc!swamps!frau!tvf (tvf@frau, tvf@cci632) Daffy Duck Sings:
"I once knew an acrobat's daughter who swung by her teeth from a noose. 'Til
one day her bridgework gave way, and she flew through the air like a Goose!"
Anthony A. Datri
>error code: EMACS -- Editor Too Large.
Much as I hate to do this:
<=>tera<=>ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /usr/local/bin/me
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root 122880 Jan 7 15:47 /usr/local/bin/microemacs*
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 147456 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi*
Robert Lane A.
I thought that a guy from Florida wrote the original "adventure"
game in BASIC. His name was "Scott Adams" Even if this is
(in)complete heresay I would be interested in knowing whatever
happened to this guy.
As I remember it, Scott Adams was the first to write a text adventure
game for a microcomputer (the TRS-80 Model I), after being inspired by
the original FORTRAN Adventure, and being told that it couldn't be
done. He wrote, in BASIC, a program to create a data file which
described an adventure game, along with another BASIC program to
interpret the data file and play the game. Later it was all recoded
in assembler, and ported to other machines. I believe he eventually
came out with around 15 games.
BYTE published an article quite a few years ago which detailed the
history of his games, and included a listing of the original BASIC
version of his adventure interpreter, along with the listing of one of
the early adventures.
BTW, this is all via my somewhat fuzzy memory, since it's been a
couple of years since I've seen the article.
I do recall quite vividly, however, playing the games on my brother's
Atari 800, after waiting around 20 minutes for them to load from
cassette tape. Long live disk drives!!
Lane l...@usl.edu ...!texbell!rouge!lar
Dave Newton the Late
> I thought that a guy from Florida wrote the original "adventure"
> game in BASIC. His name was "Scott Adams" Even if this is
> (in)complete heresay I would be interested in knowing whatever
> happened to this guy.
I'm fairly certain he didn't write the original. He did, however, release
a series of pretty good adventure games thru Adventure International (do they
still exist?) and an adventure game creator.
Don't know what he's up to now.
--
David L. Newton | uunet!marque!carroll1!dnewton
(414) 524-7343 (work) | dne...@carroll1.cc.edu
(414) 524-6809 (home) | 100 NE Ave, Waukesha WI 53186
REB - Tennessee Lamb
>| Does the word "xyzzy" have an origin earlier than the Colossal Cave adventure
>| game? Where exactly did it come from?
> I don't know where it came from, but my daughter was once playing
>another adventure game (Isle of {something}) and typed it. She got back
>the response "We do not recycle used magic words from other games."
>Broke us up.
I think Zork says "That's an old worn out magic word. Try another," when you
try typing in xyzzy.
reb
r...@rtech.com reb%rtec...@lll-winken.llnl.GOV
h:861 Washington Westwood NJ 07675 201-666-9207
Just say 'NO!' to rugs
This message sponsored by the American Hardwood Floor Association.
Neil Cherry
Emacs Manual:
To kill Emacs, type @kbd(C-x C-c) (@code(save-buffers-kill-emacs).
A two character key is used for this to make it harder to type.
Emacs happens to be my favorite editor, and yes the above is understandable to
those who use it.
NJC
Bill Hofmann
However, I think that the influence of ice cream on computer systems,
especially around MIT, can't be underestimated. EMACS was the text editor,
and the document formatter was known as BOLIO. Now, at the time, one of
the better known premium ice cream places was Emac and Bolio's. Let's not
forget mixins in Lisp Machine Lisp (or flavors)....
=Bill=
Scott McLeod
>> > "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow". It's recursive, too!
>> In a similar vein, how about "Eats Memory And Compromises Security"?
>
> I always heard it was ``Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage''
Nah, its "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift"
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scott McLeod, Quotron (UK) "paranoia is total awareness" |
| Phone: +44 1 353 6723 email: sc...@quotnet.co.uk |
| Fax: +44 1 353 6689 or ..ukc!qtnet!scott |
David Barr
says:
>In article <4...@sixhub.UUCP> davi...@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>> I don't know where it [xyzzy] came from, but my daughter was once playing
>>another adventure game (Isle of {something}) and typed it. She got back
>>the response "We do not recycle used magic words from other games."
>>Broke us up.
>Not bad. Typing in 'PLUGH' in Level 9's Snowball invoked a robot which...
That's strange.. PLUGH was the 'magic' word in one of the origional
adventure games, Pyramid 2000, written for the TRS-80 model I
It wasn't really all that magical.. it just rearranged the directions
so that north was actually east.. etc.. Thereby confusing the user.
Dave
| David Barr | I did! I did! I did saw a puddy tat!! |
| DSB...@psuvm.psu.edu | Where's the kaboom? There was supposed |
| DSB100@psuvm | to be an earth-shattering kaboom! |
| 7214...@compuserve.com |
| There's too much blood in my alcohol system! |
At these prices, I can't NAME names
#> > In the same vein as all of the posts about TECO, VAX, and PDP....
#> > What does Emacs mean?
#
#> Emacs > Makes > A > Computer > Slow.
Eight Megabytes and Constantly Swapping
--
adam margulies metaware incorporated
INTERNET: ad...@metaware.com
UUCP: uunet!metaware!adam
ATT: (408)429-META x3016
Ed McGuire,1410 EB,,
> That's strange.. PLUGH was the 'magic' word in one of the origional
> adventure games, Pyramid 2000, written for the TRS-80 model I
> It wasn't really all that magical.. it just rearranged the directions
> so that north was actually east.. etc.. Thereby confusing the user.
Not so strange. PLUGH is another magic word originating in Adventure.
(It's used to teleport between "Y2" and the wellhouse.) This is
evidently another example of a creative reuse of a magic word.
peace. -- Ed
Roman Stanowsky
>>> > > What does Emacs mean?
>>> > "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow". It's recursive, too!
>>> In a similar vein, how about "Eats Memory And Compromises Security"?
>>
>> I always heard it was ``Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage''
>Nah, its "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift"
I heard of "Eight Megabytes And Continual Swapping"...
==============================================================================
Roman Stanowsky | SUN Microsystems GmbH | Phone: (+49) 89 46008-321
German Answer Center | Am Hochacker 3 | FAX: (+49) 89 46008-400
Datacomm | D-8011 Grasbrunn | ro...@sunmuc.UUCP
John Kallen
>That's strange.. PLUGH was the 'magic' word in one of the origional
>adventure games, Pyramid 2000, written for the TRS-80 model I
>It wasn't really all that magical.. it just rearranged the directions
>so that north was actually east.. etc.. Thereby confusing the user.
Pyramid 2000 was my very first adventure game. I remember being very
disappointed when I played ADVENT for the first time (on a *real*
system, a Micromation multiple-CPU MP/M machine with *5* Megs of
winchester!) and realized that Pyramid was but a shrunken-down
replica of ADVENT.
I was frustrated by Pyramid, so I did a pass with T-BUG. Commands
(like PLUGH) showed up, but the text messages were compressed to make
it fit into the massive 16K of RAM my TRS-80 had. Boy, those were
impressive machines....
>| David Barr | I did! I did! I did saw a puddy tat!! |
>| DSB...@psuvm.psu.edu | Where's the kaboom? There was supposed |
_______________________________________________________________________________
| | | | |\ | | /|\ | John K{llen "God hates me. *That's*
| |\ \|/ \| * |/ | |/| | | PoBox 11215 what it is." "Hate Him
| |\ /|\ |\ * |\ | | | | Stanford CA 94309 back; it works for me."
_|_|___|___|____|_\|___|__|__|_j...@csli.stanford.edu___________________________
Bob Bickford
>That's strange.. PLUGH was the 'magic' word in one of the origional
>adventure games, Pyramid 2000, written for the TRS-80 model I
>It wasn't really all that magical.. it just rearranged the directions
>so that north was actually east.. etc.. Thereby confusing the user.
Er.... hate to burst your bubble, but the Trash-80 came onto the
market some **YEARS** after the original, FORTRAN, Colossal-Cave
ADVENTURE game written by Will Crowther and Don Woods was making the
rounds of numerous types of mainframes and minis.
I first saw a listing in 1976.... and I'd been *hearing* about the
damn program for at *least* a year before that....... a quick look
at my copy of Levy's _Hackers_ gives the original year as 1974.
--
Robert Bickford {apple,pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax}!well!rab
r...@well.sf.ca.us /-------------------------------------\
| Don't Blame Me: I Voted Libertarian |
\-------------------------------------/
Ian Flanigan
>I was frustrated by Pyramid, so I did a pass with T-BUG. Commands
>(like PLUGH) showed up, but the text messages were compressed to make
>it fit into the massive 16K of RAM my TRS-80 had. Boy, those were
>impressive machines....
I seem to remember that there was a version of Star Trek for the TRS-80
that had to call the Klingons "Klings", because otherwise the program was
too big to fit in memory.
>_______________________________________________________________________________
> | | | | |\ | | /|\ | John K{llen "God hates me. *That's*
> | |\ \|/ \| * |/ | |/| | | PoBox 11215 what it is." "Hate Him
> | |\ /|\ |\ * |\ | | | | Stanford CA 94309 back; it works for me."
>_|_|___|___|____|_\|___|__|__|_j...@csli.stanford.edu___________________________
Ian Flanigan
fl...@ai.wustl.edu "You can never have too many napkins."
wucs1.wustl.edu!ai!flan@uucp
JKMJJ@cunyvm
format?
I may have it in my attic in hard copy.
-------
Jack Meth
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York, NY 10019
BITNET JKMJJ@CUNYVM
"When all is said and done, more is said than done." A.E.N.
kl...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Ahem.
Ux1. ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 1706316 Jan 26 13:54 /usr/local/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-t 7 root 155648 Oct 18 15:56 /usr/ucb/vi
_____
Charley Kline, University of Illinois Computing Services
c-k...@uiuc.edu
Kean Stump
You got MicroGnuEmacs there, son. No lisp, and not a lot else.
jessicar 1776% ll /usr/local/bin/emacs
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 1860685 Jan 22 12:46 emacs
kean
Oregon State University Kean Stump
College of Oceanography ke...@cs.orst.edu
Corvallis, Oregon {tektronix,hp-pcd}!orstcs!kean
The opinions in this article are MINE, not my employers. Don't Worry About Them.
Felix Lee
> Ux1. ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs /usr/ucb/vi
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 1706316 Jan 26 13:54 /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxr-xr-t 7 root 155648 Oct 18 15:56 /usr/ucb/vi
% ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root 49152 Apr 24 1989 /bin/ed
--
Felix Lee fl...@shire.cs.psu.edu *!psuvax1!flee
Nate Hess
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nhess 1350975 Jan 20 18:18 /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 155648 Nov 16 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 40960 Nov 16 1988 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 9476 Nov 16 1988 /bin/cat
It just keeps getting better and better, or worse and worse, depending
on how you look at it.
--woodstock
--
"What I like is when you're looking and thinking and looking
and thinking...and suddenly you wake up." - Hobbes
nh...@dvlseq.oracle.com or ...!uunet!oracle!nhess or (415) 598-3046
Maarten Litmaath
fl...@shire.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
\Charley Kline <kl...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
\> Ux1. ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs /usr/ucb/vi
\> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 1706316 Jan 26 13:54 /usr/local/bin/emacs
\> -rwxr-xr-t 7 root 155648 Oct 18 15:56 /usr/ucb/vi
\
\% ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed
\-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
\-rwxr-xr-x 2 root 49152 Apr 24 1989 /bin/ed
% ls -l /bin/cat /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5400 Apr 25 1989 /bin/cat
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root 40960 May 3 1989 /bin/ed
--
What do the following have in common: access(2), SysV echo, O_NONDELAY? |
Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam: ma...@cs.vu.nl, uunet!mcsun!botter!maart
Anthony A. Datri
>You got MicroGnuEmacs there, son. No lisp, and not a lot else.
No, I do not bloody have MicroGnuEmacs there, dad. I have MicroEmacs.
No Lisp. Whoopie. I don't often need to run eliza in my editor.
>jessicar 1776% ll /usr/local/bin/emacs
>-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 1860685 Jan 22 12:46 emacs
The point that I was trying to make [which absolutely nobody seems
to have comprehended], is that you can't speak of the size of "emacs"
because there is no standard/reference "emacs". All too many people seem
to think that "emacs" means "gnu emacs", which (regardless of your preferences)
is wrong.
"emacs" can be applied to a wide spectrum of editors, including MicroEmacs,
Epsilon, Jove, Unipress Emacs, GnuEmacs, PDP-10 Emacs, etc.
If you insist on considering any one implementation the "real" one, then it
would have to be the ITS one.
1.8 meg unstripped -g'd gnu binaries certainly are not a "reference"
implementation.
Kevin J Martin
>In article <15...@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> kean...@oce.orst.edu (Kean Stump) writes:
>
>
>No Lisp. Whoopie. I don't often need to run eliza in my editor.
>
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 1860685 Jan 22 12:46 emacs
>
>to have comprehended], is that you can't speak of the size of "emacs"
>because there is no standard/reference "emacs". All too many people seem
>to think that "emacs" means "gnu emacs", which (regardless of your preferences)
>is wrong.
>
>"emacs" can be applied to a wide spectrum of editors, including MicroEmacs,
>Epsilon, Jove, Unipress Emacs, GnuEmacs, PDP-10 Emacs, etc.
>
>If you insist on considering any one implementation the "real" one, then it
>would have to be the ITS one.
>
>1.8 meg unstripped -g'd gnu binaries certainly are not a "reference"
>implementation.
But if everyone *were* using that incredibly tiny version you seem to
have, there wouldn't be any problems. Unfortunately, few people are.
Here at RPI:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gnu 1171456 Nov 2 23:45 /usr/local/lib/emacs/bin/emacs
Kevin Martin
si...@pawl.rpi.edu
Anthony J Stieber
>gumby% ls -l /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed /bin/cat
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 nhess 1350975 Jan 20 18:18 /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs
>-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 155648 Nov 16 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 40960 Nov 16 1988 /bin/ed
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 9476 Nov 16 1988 /bin/cat
-rwx--x--x 1 root 545792 Aug 21 17:56 /usr/local/bin/emacs <- Real GNU
-rwxr-xr-t 6 bin 119808 Sep 11 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 2 bin 20480 Jul 24 1988 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin 17408 Jul 24 1988 /bin/cat
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin 7168 Jul 24 1988 /bin/echo
--
<-:(= Tony Stieber asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu att!uwm!uwmcsd4!astieber
"i make a point of never sleeping with anyone who believes in god." -- gypsy
Richard Stueven
>
>-rwx--x--x 1 root 545792 Aug 21 17:56 /usr/local/bin/emacs <- Real GNU
>-rwxr-xr-t 6 bin 119808 Sep 11 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
>-rwxr-xr-x 2 bin 20480 Jul 24 1988 /bin/ed
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin 17408 Jul 24 1988 /bin/cat
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin 7168 Jul 24 1988 /bin/echo
/usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs not found <------------------------hooray!
-rwxr-xr-x 7 root 204800 Nov 7 10:12 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 3 root 49152 Nov 7 10:10 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 8688 Nov 7 09:17 /bin/cat
crw-rw-rw- 1 root 3, 2 Feb 1 07:48 /dev/null
*Now* can we close this thread?
thx
gak
Richard Stueven g...@sun.com
I like to know what I'm doing when I'm doing what I do when I'm
doing it because I don't know what to do when I'm not doing it. - S.Ridgeway
Byron Rakitzis
>\> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 1706316 Jan 26 13:54 /usr/local/bin/emacs
Are you sure that this file has been stripped of its symbol table? Our
GNU Emacs (version 18.5x, not sure what x is) measures only about 600K!
--
Just try taking your VAX down to Jiffy-Lube these days!
Byron Rakitzis. (tbra...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU)
Robert Krawitz
]gumby% ls -l /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed /bin/cat
]-rwxr-xr-x 1 nhess 1350975 Jan 20 18:18 /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs
]-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 155648 Nov 16 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
]-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 40960 Nov 16 1988 /bin/ed
]-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 9476 Nov 16 1988 /bin/cat
Well, there's always
[2(rlk)||{!1120}<underprize.think.com>/tmp_mnt/am/u9/rlk/bin]
% ls -l /usr/bin/adb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 114688 May 25 1989 /usr/bin/adb
(emacs can't yet edit something the size of a decent filesystem).
(Hi there to you-know-who who's been waiting to see me actually post :-)
Now you see it...)
--
ames >>>>>>>>> | Robert Krawitz <r...@think.com> 245 First St.
bloom-beacon > |think!rlk (postmaster) Cambridge, MA 02142
harvard >>>>>> . Thinking Machines Corp. (617)876-1111
Robert Krawitz
]
]But if everyone *were* using that incredibly tiny version you seem to
]have, there wouldn't be any problems. Unfortunately, few people are.
]Here at RPI:
]
]-rwxr-xr-x 1 gnu 1171456 Nov 2 23:45 /usr/local/lib/emacs/bin/emacs
Well, that's not the whole story either:
[2(rlk)||{!1130}<underprize.think.com>/tmp_mnt/am/u9/rlk/bin]
% ps ux
USER PID %CPU %MEM SZ RSS TT STAT START TIME COMMAND
rlk 446 0.0 11.419976 1740 p0 S Jan 15111:55 gmacs -display underpriz
[note that that's 111 minutes of Sparc CPU time].
Emacs: it's not just an editor, it's a way of life.
Anthony A. Datri
== -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 1706316 Jan 26 13:54 /usr/local/bin/emacs
== -rwxr-xr-t 7 root 155648 Oct 18 15:56 /usr/ucb/vi
=% ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed
=-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
=-rwxr-xr-x 2 root 49152 Apr 24 1989 /bin/ed
Good Grief!
lovecraftRoot=>ls -l /bin/cat
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5400 Apr 24 1989 /bin/cat*
Ben Burch
> I believe that Will just made it up [much as he made up near everything else
> in Adventure]. I can ask him, but I'm really quite sure that it was just
> random-letters.
>
> /Bernie\
>
If you know him; I have a question I have been fairly itching to ask;
I read a book called "The Longest Cave" which was all about the exploration of
the Mammoth Cave / Colossal Cave complex in TN. (There IS a place named "Y2",
there IS a "Bedquilt") In this book is a picture of a woman named Pat
Crowthers (I dont really remember the correct spelling, sorry if I got
it wrong.)
who is mapping the cave on an IBM 1130 with a pen plotter. My question is
if this woman is related to the adventure author of the same last name?
Thanks!
-Ben Burch
Bernie Cosell
}
}> I believe that Will just made it up [much as he made up near everything else
}> in Adventure]. I can ask him, but I'm really quite sure that it was just
}> random-letters.
As a footnote, I did ask him and he did make it up. All the purported
etymologies are "folk"...
}I read a book called "The Longest Cave" which was all about the exploration of
}the Mammoth Cave / Colossal Cave complex in TN. (There IS a place named "Y2",
}there IS a "Bedquilt") In this book is a picture of a woman named Pat
}Crowthers (I dont really remember the correct spelling, sorry if I got
}it wrong.)
}who is mapping the cave on an IBM 1130 with a pen plotter. My question is
}if this woman is related to the adventure author of the same last name?
Just so. Patty was Will's wife at the time. She is still involved in
caving, I think, but Will has been out of it for years.
/Bernie\
Galen J. Hekhuis
>I read a book called "The Longest Cave" which was all about the exploration of
>the Mammoth Cave / Colossal Cave complex in TN. (There IS a place named "Y2",
>there IS a "Bedquilt") In this book is a picture of a woman named Pat
>Crowthers (I dont really remember the correct spelling, sorry if I got
>it wrong.)
The book:
The Longest Cave
by Roger W. Brucker & Richard A. Watson
ISBN 0-394-48793-1
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. NY
Is about the Mammoth Cave/Colossal Cave/[Flint Ridge system, and a host of
others] complex in Kentucky, rather than TN. The system is over 300 mi in
length and is the longest known cave system in the world, nothing else even
comes close. Pat Crowther was indeed on the party that linked Mammoth to
the Flint Ridge system, and numerous other trips. She is unrelated to
anyone, however, including her family.
hang gliding mailing list: hang-g...@virginia.edu
Galen Hekhuis UVa Health Sci Ctr (804)982-1646 g...@virginia.edu
A woman needs a fish like an umbrella needs a bicycle
Roger Ivie
> Does anyone have the Cave Adventure game in machine readable
> format?
> I may have it in my attic in hard copy.
>
Silly you, didn't specify for which machine. I have it 8" SSSD for CP/M.
(Since I still have an 8" SSSD machine, I can still run it.)
===============================================================================
Roger Ivie
35 S 300 W
Logan, Ut. 84321
(801) 752-8633
===============================================================================
Patricia P Wilcox
of the Coolspring Banjo Works north of Columbus, Ohio. She gave up
caving about ten years ago because of back trouble, but keeps busy
designing Amiga software and fonts, playing for square dances, and
being a brand new OSU grad student. (Mid-terms -- aaaarrrrggggghhh!)
Yep, Colossal Cave, the spring house, the gate, the Hall of the Mountain
King, the maze of twisty little passages... They're all real. We typed
in all that survey data from muddy little books on a 110-baud teletype
to a PDP-1 (the survey code took advantage of an undocumented side-effect
of a custom-wired instruction that was only on that one machine, he he he).
Then generated plotting commands on huge rolls of paper tape, which we
carried over and plotted using a salvaged Calcomp drum plotter attached
to a Honeywell 316 that was destined to become an ARPAnet IMP. (Will
Crowther did a lot of the original ARPAnet code, too, when he wasn't
busy writing Adventure.)
.
r.peterson
>>Actually, if you look in /usr/include/errno.h, you'll see that it's a UNIX
>>error code: EMACS -- Editor Too Large.
>
> Much as I hate to do this:
>
> <=>tera<=>ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /usr/local/bin/me
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root 122880 Jan 7 15:47 /usr/local/bin/microemacs*
> -rwxr-xr-x 6 root 147456 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi*
And, as much as I love to do this:
ls -l /usr/new/emacs /usr/bin/vi /usr/local/bin/emacs8
-r-xr-xr-t 4 bin bin 212992 May 16 1989 /usr/bin/vi
-r-xr-xr-x 2 bin bin 1048576 May 16 1989 /usr/new/emacs
-rwxr-xr-x 4 root root 487424 Nov 25 21:20 /usr/local/bin/emacs8
/usr/new/emacs is 18.52 GNU emacs. /usr/local/bin/emacs8 is microemacs
as licensed from the distributor. Vi is vi. (and always has been, and
always will be - mirabile dictu).
As Stan Lee used to say:
'nuff said.
--
One makes strong assumptions delving Roe Peterson
into the beginning of the universe... r...@sobeco.com
- Stephen Hawking, Cambridge uunet!sobeco!roe
Barry Shein
(the only purpose of this comment is to flame someone out there)
I suppose you can tell Unix has arrived when self-proclaimed
illuminati have taken the "small is beautiful" ethos and reduced
it to:
% ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /usr/local/bin/emacs
-rwxrwxr-x 1 spike 794624 Nov 13 14:01 /usr/local/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
emacs > vi THEREFORE vi > emacs. QED.
(or whatever it is they're concluding, fill in the verb.)
Gee, I really wish software quality measurement was so simple...I
guess these are the same folks who go out and buy the (most/least)
expensive car they can find on the assumption that price==value.
(not to mention falling for cup-and-a-half of flavor advertisements)
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | b...@world.std.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
Mike Peltier
>062@convex.c
>Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
>Lines: 25
>In-Reply-To: da...@convex.com's message of 1 Feb 90 16:54:14 GMT
>
>
>(the only purpose of this comment is to flame someone out there)
>
>I suppose you can tell Unix has arrived when self-proclaimed
>illuminati have taken the "small is beautiful" ethos and reduced
>it to:
>
> % ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxrwxr-x 1 spike 794624 Nov 13 14:01 /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
>
>emacs > vi THEREFORE vi > emacs. QED.
>
>(or whatever it is they're concluding, fill in the verb.)
>
>Gee, I really wish software quality measurement was so simple...I
>guess these are the same folks who go out and buy the (most/least)
>expensive car they can find on the assumption that price==value.
>
>(not to mention falling for cup-and-a-half of flavor advertisements)
Well, you might also consider:
% ls -ls /bin/sh /bin/csh /bin/ksh
124 -rwxrwx--x 1 root 125594 Sep 29 1988 /bin/csh
187 -rwxrwx--x 1 root 189459 Jun 9 1988 /bin/ksh
63 -rwxrwx--x 1 root 62796 Sep 13 1988 /bin/sh
And especially this:
% ls -sl /vmunix
864 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root 874838 Jan 30 08:56 /vmunix
I consider it an ultimate preposterosity to use an "editor" that
has the same order of magnitude as the UNIX operating system itself.
I'm sure emacs has some pretty neat features that are really useful
in select situations, but in the realm of composing a letter, using
emacs is simply the proverbial H-bomb vs. Ant, not to mention extremely
wasteful of system resources.
Tone down your flame, and think about what you're saying.
Michael Bender
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nhess 1350975 Jan 20 18:18 /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 155648 Nov 16 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 40960 Nov 16 1988 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 9476 Nov 16 1988 /bin/cat
how about that??
mike
Christopher Pettus
Eh, feh, all much too large, all you really need is you need is:
goofy: ls -l /bin/echo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5120 Jun 29 1988 /bin/echo
(By the way, *why* are cat and echo as large as they are?)
--
Christopher Pettus | "I used to think the mind was
Network Connectivity Development | the most important part of a
Apple Computer, Inc. MS 35-K | person. Then I realized what
c...@apple.com {nsc, sun}!apple!cep | part of me is telling me that."
AppleLink: PETTUS.C |
Dave Ihnat
>illuminati have taken the "small is beautiful" ethos and reduced
>it to:
>
> % ls -l /usr/ucb/vi /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxrwxr-x 1 spike 794624 Nov 13 14:01 /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxr-xr-x 6 root 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi
>
>emacs > vi THEREFORE vi > emacs. QED.
>
>(or whatever it is they're concluding, fill in the verb.)
>
>Gee, I really wish software quality measurement was so simple...I
>guess these are the same folks who go out and buy the (most/least)
>expensive car they can find on the assumption that price==value.
I'm not about to stick my head in the "which is better" trap. However,
I might suggest that one reason Emacs is *so* large is that it currently
has everything but the kitchen sink. I mean, REALLY--if you want to run
cellular automata, or write LISP, shouldn't you use an appropriate tool? As
it is, Emacs can't be called simply a program editor; it eats most small
machines alive and spits out the bits. The Unix credo of "small is beautiful"
can be overdone, I agree--but I do think the credo "Do one thing, but do it
well" is still a valid point. Tools should be specialized, but with general
interfaces so they may be piped or otherwise used to build a more complex
environment. I've heard few argue about the functional capabilities of
Emacs; I simply argue that if one tool that does everything is to be a desired
goal again, let's go right back and resurrect DEC's PIP...
Anthony A. Datri
<<(the only purpose of this comment is to flame someone out there)
<<I suppose you can tell Unix has arrived when self-proclaimed
<<illuminati have taken the "small is beautiful" ethos and reduced it to:
<<emacs < vi THEREFORE vi < emacs. QED.
Stop accusing me of something that neither I nor anyone else said.
<<guess these are the same folks who go out and buy the (most/least)
<<expensive car they can find on the assumption that price==value.
LOOK BACK. Did I *ever* express an editor preference? Did I ever say
that any editor was better than any other? Stop making your own reality.
<% ls -sl /vmunix
< 864 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root 874838 Jan 30 08:56 /vmunix
<I consider it an ultimate preposterosity to use an "editor" that
<has the same order of magnitude as the UNIX operating system itself.
<Tone down your flame, and think about what you're saying.
I really can't believe that people 1) couldn't see the point I was
making, and 2) still can't see the point I was making. I'll s p e l l
it out real clear again.
The point that I was making is that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "EMACS",
and therefore YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT HOW BIG "EMACS" IS. Very few people
have proven to be able to comprehend this. If you wish to talk about
how big an unstripped, profiled, compiled with -g GNU Emacs binary is,
FINE. You're talking about something that exists. Think about what
*>>I<<* was saying that started the whole mess. I was saying that there
is no one program called Emacs, and as such you can't speak of any
attribute of "Emacs", except perhaps "common default bindings". Someone had
made the meaningless "editor too large" statement, which is what prompted
me to make the original post. There are a whole lot of different things
that get called Emacs.
YOU CAN'T SAY THAT "EMACS" IS BIGGER THAN VI. YOU ALSO CAN'T SAY THAT
"EMACS" IS SMALLER THAN VI. YOU CAN'T EVEN COMPARE THEM.
Some of the more obtuse of you are saying things like "a Japanese car
is more expensive than a Ford Escort", which are clearly non-sequitors.
I posted the size of a stripped MicroEmacs 3.10 binary, and of a stripped
GnuEmacs 18.55 (but of course not dynamically linked) binary, and of a stripped
/usr/ucb/vi. The MicroEmacs is smaller than the /usr/ucb/vi, and the
/usr/ucb/vi is smaller than the GnuEmacs 18.55. IS THE POINT CLEAR NOW?
CAN YOU U N D E R S T A N D? Can I make it any clearer? Here is a list
of things that match the concept "emacs":
MINCE (yeah, I know)
Epsilon
Jove
MicroEmacs
Hemlock
GNU Emacs
CCA Emacs
Gosling/Unipress Emacs
Freemacs
EDMACS (a set of TECO macros in the DECUS library)
ITS Emacs
Tenex/Twenex Emacs
whatever it is that Prime gives with Primos
Epoch
IS IT CLEAR YET?
Sheesh.
The Grey Wolf
>In article <131...@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> ben...@oobleck.UUCP (Michael Bender) writes:
>>gumby% ls -l /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs /usr/ucb/vi /bin/ed /bin/cat /dev/null
>>-rwxr-xr-x 1 nhess 1350975 Jan 20 18:18 /usr/local/bin/gnu/emacs
>>-rwxr-xr-x 6 root 155648 Nov 16 1988 /usr/ucb/vi
>>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 40960 Nov 16 1988 /bin/ed
>>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 9476 Nov 16 1988 /bin/cat
>>crw-rw-rw- 2 root 3, 2 Feb 12 23:15 /dev/null
>>
>>how about that??
>
>Eh, feh, all much too large, all you really need is you need is:
>
>goofy: ls -l /bin/echo
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5120 Jun 29 1988 /bin/echo
>
>(By the way, *why* are cat and echo as large as they are?)
Funny... under SunOS4.0(.3), /bin/cat is *smaller* than /bin/echo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 16384 Apr 24 1989 /bin/echo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5400 Apr 24 1989 /bin/cat
Wyzzat? Dunno. Must be something to do with the dynamic linking they use.
In any case, I think that the reason they are so damnably large, considering
their function, is that they were compiled linking in the C library (it's
necessary to have it linked in to reference all the system calls...).
Perhaps there should be libc for the true library calls, and then have
libsys for just the system calls (for such programs as cat...)?
Non-standard, to be sure. But it could conceivably cut down on overhead...
(followups on this via Email, please. ...!{uunet,sun,apple}!unisoft!greywolf
I've cluttered enough for one day...)
>--
>Christopher Pettus | "I used to think the mind was
>Network Connectivity Development | the most important part of a
>Apple Computer, Inc. MS 35-K | person. Then I realized what
>c...@apple.com {nsc, sun}!apple!cep | part of me is telling me that."
>AppleLink: PETTUS.C |
--
Brain fried. (Explanation is in file "core".)
Christopher North-Keys
An emacs we were using crashed and core dumped once when the file servers
(which were soft-mounted at that site) croaked off for a while.
Obnoxiously, this left the text file on disk truncated to zero, and the
dump our only hope of recovering the crucial text. When the file servers
had recovered, we yanked the coredump into a nice, fresh emacs,
marked the part of it that happened to be the lost file, and used
write-region. (Try this in *anything* else and you'll see why emacs
is so popular.)
Some executables on these systems run well over 8 Mb.
Sun 4, SunOS 4.0.3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 harp wheel 1441792 Aug 24 21:48 /net/bin.sparc/emacs*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1156609 May 12 1989 /vmunix*
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root staff 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi*
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root staff 196608 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/ex*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root staff 49152 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/ed*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 16384 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/echo*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 6312 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/cat*
Sun 3, SunOS 4.0.3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 harp wheel 1163264 Feb 5 17:06 /net/mc68020/bin/emacs*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 945414 Oct 2 16:58 /vmunix*
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root staff 147456 Apr 24 1989 /usr/ucb/vi*
-rwxr-xr-x 6 root staff 147456 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/ex*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root staff 40960 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/ed*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 16384 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/echo*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 5400 Apr 24 1989 /usr/bin/cat*
Hi. This thread's a little strange, but I suppose that's not surprising
considering the religious nature of the discussion. Hence, a breakdown
of application for the above editors in the hopes some of the religious
ferver can be clarified:
cat, echo, shell redirection and builtin echo, etc...
----------------------------------------
Append-only editing. useful when stuck in a brain-damaged /sbin
with /usr unmountable because your /etc/hosts file is wrong...
Would have been more useful is Sun had bothered to put a sync(1) in
the /sbin. Still more useful with tail, head, etc.
ed, sed, etc...
----------------------------------------
Useful when your terminal's decided to be stupid and you can't find
ex/vi. Always excellent for batch scripts.
ex
----------------------------------------
Not a bad place to be when on a stupid terminal (or one claiming to
be), although I prefer line-oriented vi.
vi
----------------------------------------
Good for relatively straight-forward edits of short to medium length
ASCII files, especially for a user knowing about multiple cut buffers,
the :set facility, tabstop, showmatch, autoindent, etc. Commands are
simple and can be typed on just about any keyboard, although the modal
nature of move/command vs. insert/add vs. colon:command is somewhat
dangerous. Startup is fast on small files. Repeating trivial commands
is easily done. Can take advantage of arrow keys on many systems.
Has a basic UNDO feature.
Bad for long files, or strongly-interrelated file modifications on sets of
files. Cannot handle long lines, large window sizes, or binary files.
Inappropriate for any file not line-oriented. Miserable startup time
on large files (on this system). Macro facility is primitive. Cannot
take advantage of the mouse. Copy of text between files is difficult.
Advanced data manipulation is difficult or impossible.
emacs (GNU)
----------------------------------------
Full blown form is extreme for one-shot edits of small ASCII files.
Use of coredump to provide preloaded image makes dynamic linking much
more difficult (hence the larger disk usage). Startup time is generally
substantially longer than that of vi on small to medium files. Emacs
is not a UN*X standard, thus its users need to understand vi anyway.
Emacs can edit just about anything, any length, including its own binary
if one is so inclined. The large size is the result of its internals
being "a virtual LISP machine programmed in vaguely C-reminiscent
microcode" [Paraphrased, source forgotten]. Thus, to compare its macro
capability favorably to vi's would be like finding the architecture of a
Cray better suited for advanced mathematics than that of an Apple II.
Emacs handles multiple concurrent buffers, non-sequential text units
(such as that used in picture-mode, copy-rectangle, and so forth),
external Emacs-Lisp libraries, internal usage of a shell within a window
(nice if your stuck on an ASCII terminal), interfacing to the user via
a mouse-cognizant X or Sunview interface, and server/client type editing
connections with emacsclient commands run elsewhere in the machine.
It also has a virtually unlimited length backward/forward UNDO feature,
held separately for each buffer. Emacs also has a *very* comprehensive,
disk-based, on-line information/help/tutorial facility. Advanced data
manipulation, including process i/o, can be handled as seen in such as
rmail, shell, dbx, rnews, etc.
In short:
They all have their uses. An educated user should understand all of them
to at least some degree. The smaller programs are still available when
the system is crippled. The larger programs have greater capability.
Personal opinions (you might bail out now if you don't like Emacs...):
It isn't hard to imagine that a programmable editor could be useful
to a programmer, but some persons seem to miss that it might also
also be useful to those wishing to take advantage of data-oriented
packages which focus on editing (mail, and news are prime examples).
Vi is useful, even invaluable, for many low-intensity editing functions,
but by no means is it suitable for all editing tasks. Granted, Emacs
on some systems end up bigger than the kernal --- but consider, too,
that on many systems and emacs *does* more than the kernel.
Favorite uses of emacs:
Changing error messages and pathnames in an executable that didn't come
with source code.
Editing source code. Mislaid semicolons get betrayed by wierd-looking
tabbing in emacs c-mode, for example.
Creating an additional keymap hanging off of Control-\ .
Running cellular automata.
Prefixing a quoted section of mail with a given string, say "rms> ", on
every line (or a section of lisp with ";;").
Running emacsclient ($EDITOR) from within, say, readnews.
Inserting the system date as generated by date(1) at point with a two
character macro.
Documenting watching someone trying to repeat a complex command in vi.
------------------------------------/\----------------------------------------
Seo: Harp[@Mcc.Com] / \/\ ^*^ Christopher North-Keys
Tha mi gu trang a'cluich. / \ \ Assoc. Systems Analyst, MCC
--------------------------------(disclaimer)----------------------------------
Jude Poole
> YOU CAN'T SAY THAT "EMACS" IS BIGGER THAN VI. YOU ALSO CAN'T SAY THAT
> "EMACS" IS SMALLER THAN VI. YOU CAN'T EVEN COMPARE THEM.
>
> Some of the more obtuse of you are saying things like "a Japanese car
> is more expensive than a Ford Escort", which are clearly non-sequitors.
>
I understand your point, but you are perhaps overstating your case.
While most of us wouldn't say "a Japanese car is more expensive
than a ford escort" most would agree that "a Ferrari is more expensive
than a Ford Escort" even thought "a Ferrari" is terribly broad and
in point of fact a used Ferrari may well be less expensive.
You may well be right that Emacs is too broad a classification to
have any meaning. But the flavors I have seen are big, like Italian
sports cars are expensive. Statements like "Unix doen't mean
anything because there are so many different flavors" are overbroad.
Macbeth Ylr
jpo...@ucsd.edu
Brian R. Holt
ign...@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) writes:
> I might suggest that one reason Emacs is *so* large is that it currently
> has everything but the kitchen sink. I mean, REALLY--if you want to run
> cellular automata, or write LISP, shouldn't you use an appropriate tool?
I suspect that many GnuEmacs fanatics are frustrated LispM hackers who
see GnuEmacs as a primitite LispM environment under Unix. Overheard at
a party years back at House Gorodish was the instructive quote:
"I could *live* in GnuEmacs". Editor, programming environment, email,
news, window system, everything. And if you ever need a shell, you could
always run one of those in your emacs window, but why bother? If
GnuEmacs doesn't do it yet, just hack up a little lisp code, and you
are all set.
GnuEmacs is not an editor, it is an environment that is completely
configurable and extensible. What more could you want?
=brian
P.S. Many of these comments apply to other full-featured emacs but none
so well as GnuEmacs.
br...@ima.isc.com
US 617-661-7474 x206
near the last bend in the Charles River
Brian Bartholomew
DO include the kitchen sink. When you make the X version of GNU
EMACS, the default icon (icon = small picture that appears as a
reminder that you have a program running, when you close a window)
is, in fact, an overflowing sink.
--
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida Internet: b...@beach.cis.ufl.edu
Robert Krawitz
]I suspect that many GnuEmacs fanatics are frustrated LispM hackers who
]see GnuEmacs as a primitite LispM environment under Unix. Overheard at
]a party years back at House Gorodish was the instructive quote:
]"I could *live* in GnuEmacs". Editor, programming environment, email,
]news, window system, everything. And if you ever need a shell, you could
]always run one of those in your emacs window, but why bother? If
]GnuEmacs doesn't do it yet, just hack up a little lisp code, and you
]are all set.
One former prep[.ai.mit.edu]pie told me that he set up emacs as his
login shell a while back. Dunno if he still uses it...
Joel B Levin
]I suspect that many GnuEmacs fanatics are frustrated LispM hackers who
]GnuEmacs doesn't do it yet, just hack up a little lisp code, and you
]are all set.
Fooey. The only EMACS I was comfortable with had TECO running under
it (on a Tenex, later a TOPS-20). Now that was an environment where I
felt like I could do anything! (Though sometimes I had to spend a
fair amount of time in the help facility, as I didn't have any
documentation for the MIT variety of TECO.)
/JBL
Nets: le...@bbn.com | "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's
or {...}!bbn!levin | bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she
POTS: (617)873-3463 | stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."
David Vinayak Wallace
Date: 16 Feb 90 22:33:37 GMT
From: r...@think.com (Robert Krawitz)
One former prep[.ai.mit.edu]pie told me that he set up emacs as his
login shell a while back. Dunno if he still uses it...
Actually, I used the program below. It let you win even if the tty
was too feeble to run emacs. The only change between then and now is
that I added everything between the -*- line and the 30 dashes.
Compile this, change your entry in the passwd file, and do
ln -s `which emacs` ~/.emacs-binary. Use it in good health.
/* -*- Mode: c -*-
boot-emacs.c -- program to use as your `shell' which trampolines emacs
Copyright 1984 David Vinayak Wallace.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
Contact the author if you need a copy of the license, at
gu...@cygnus.com.
------------------------------
Help us use emacs standalone. If TERM is defined in the
environment, make sure it's powerful enough to run EMACS. If not,
ask the user for a new terminal type. Then exec the program
~/.emacs-binary. Why that?
1> so I can run this program at J Random Site, and
2> If anything goes wrong I can delete that file.
If anything goes wrong (or the user supplies a blank line when asked
for a tty type), then the program loads /bin/csh.
Don't worry about initialising the tty -- emacs should do it.
I don't know if this will run under anything but 4.2BSD.
*/
#include <stdio.h>
/* There's no way to know in a general way what sort of terminal EMACS
will accept, but we can catch cases we know about */
#define TTY_GOOD 0 /* TTY fine for EMACS */
#define NONE_SET 1 /* no TTY set at all */
#define NO_ENTRY 2 /* TTY unknown to termcap */
#define TOO_WEAK 3 /* TTY not powerful enough */
#define TTY_IS_X 4 /* TTY claimed to be under X */
tty_ok_p (terminal_type)
char *terminal_type;
{
char tbuf[2044]; /* Termcap entry buffer */
/* has c no cond? */
if (!terminal_type) return(NONE_SET);
if (!strncmp(terminal_type, "xterm", 5)) return(TTY_IS_X);
if (!strncmp(terminal_type, "supdup", 6)) return(TTY_GOOD);
if (!strncmp(terminal_type, "network", 7)) return(TOO_WEAK);
if (tgetent (tbuf, terminal_type) <= 0) return(NO_ENTRY);
return(TTY_GOOD);
}
/* Like execle, but if dash_p is true the program will be given a dash before its name.
This is how unix indicates that you are the head of a tree (!) */
p_replace (file_name, program_name, dash_p, envp)
char **file_name;
char **program_name;
int dash_p;
char **envp;
{
char name[40];
sprintf(name,(dash_p ? "-%s" : "%s"), program_name);
execle(file_name, name, 0, envp);
}
/* This program is a mass of magic numbers. So be it. It's not
general anyway; if you want to do it right you'll have to re-write
it completely. */
main (argc, argv, envp)
int argc;
char **argv;
char **envp;
{
char name_buf[257]; /* max unix filename is 256, right? */
char initial, c;
char ttyname[100];
char ttyenv[106]; /* for the new TERM=type string */
int ttystat; /* temp for while loop */
char **ep; /* ptr into envp for hacking TERM */
for ( ep=envp ; *ep; ep++)
if (strncmp (*ep, "TERM=", 5) == 0)
break;
if (!*ep)
/* The first time this hits me I'm gonna scream and curse the
twit who failed to write this in a more general manner. Then
I'll fix it. Until then I'll assume it won't happen. */
fprintf(stderr, "TERM not defined in environment. ");
else
{
strcpy(ttyname,(*ep)+5);
while (*ttyname &&
((ttystat=tty_ok_p(ttyname)) != TTY_GOOD) &&
(ttystat != TTY_IS_X))
{
if (ttystat == NO_ENTRY) fprintf(stderr, "Terminal %s unknown.\n",
ttyname);
if (ttystat == TOO_WEAK) fprintf(stderr, "Terminal %s is too weak for EMACS.\n",
ttyname);
/* Were I paranoid I'd use fgets to avoid buffer overflow */
fputs("What is your terminal type: ", stderr);
gets(ttyname);
}
if (!*ttyname)
fprintf(stderr, "Null terminal specified. ");
else
{
sprintf(ttyenv, "TERM=%s", ttyname);
*ep=ttyenv;
sprintf(name_buf,"%s%s",getenv("HOME"),"/.emacs-binary");
p_replace(name_buf, "emacs", (*argv[0] == '-'), envp);
fprintf(stderr, "Can't map %s. ", name_buf);
}
}
/* Something wrong? Fall back on /bin/csh */
fprintf(stderr, "Loading /bin/csh...\n");
p_replace("/bin/csh", "csh", (*argv[0] == '-'), envp);
}
Jozsef A Toth
73 /dice% size /usr/ucb/vi
text data bss dec hex
139264 8192 119192 266648 41198
95 /usr/local/bin% size emacs emacstool
text data bss dec hex
778240 212992 0 991232 f2000 emacs
581632 16384 16532 614548 96094 emacstool
97 /usr/local/bin% size /usr/local/kee4.0/bin/kee
text data bss dec hex
11657216 8781824 0 20439040 137e000
Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs
]73 /dice% size /usr/ucb/vi
]text data bss dec hex
]139264 8192 119192 266648 41198
]95 /usr/local/bin% size emacs emacstool
]text data bss dec hex
]778240 212992 0 991232 f2000 emacs
]581632 16384 16532 614548 96094 emacstool
Emacs doesn't HAVE to be huge:
er:/e5/wcs> size $TOOLS/bin/emacs
91548 + 8992 + 35100 = 135640
This is Warren Montgomery's emacs at AT&T; it doesn't have all the
bells and whistles and integrated programming environment of GNU emacs,
but for a basic emacs alternative to vi, it's lean and mean, and
quick to start up and runs on MS-DOS also. Of course, our vi isn't
as big as yours either (AT&T terminfo based, on a 3B2 CISC.)
er:/e5/wcs> size /usr/bin/vi
147468 + 8948 + 29956 = 186372
--
# Bill Stewart AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs
# Fax 949-4876. Sometimes found at Somerset 201-271-4712
# He put on the goggles, waved his data glove, and walked off into cyberspace.
# Wasn't seen again for days.