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There is also an argument to be made that EMACS was not an improvement over TECO. TECO had a very similar command structure to vi — optional count, command, and
by kps 13y ago
There is also an argument to be made that EMACS was not an improvement over TECO. TECO had a very similar command structure to vi — optional count, command, and optional argument terminated by ESC. (I have not seen any evidence that vi imitated TECO rather than arriving at the same structure independently.)
- jpmattia 13y ago> There is also an argument to be made that EMACS was not an improvement over TECO. Full disclosure: I've been using emacs since 1981. ISTR TECO under TOPS was a PITA. eg. From Sec 4-1 Some characters, like <CTRL/U>, are both regular TECO commands and immediate action commands. The command string ^Uqtext` enters the specified text into Q-register q. However, <CTRL/U> typed while entering a command string is an immediate action editing character which deletes the current line. Thus you cannot type a <CTRL/U> (or any similar sequence) directly into TECO as part of a command string. Nevertheless, <CTRL/U> is still a valid TECO command; should TECO encounter it in a macro or indirect file, it will have its regular TECO effect (^Uqtext`). http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/documentation/pdf/teco.pdf http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/documentation/pdf/teco...
- kps 13y agoSure; that's an effect of having a terminal line edit character (^U for erase line) also in use as an editor command. I'm not defending the details of TECO's particular commands. But it reminds me of the first time I tried EMACS, actually, and my reaction to backspace bringing up a help file.
- jlarocco 13y agoI've used TECO on a VAX. There is no argument to be made that emacs isn't an improvement over TECO. Compared to modern editors, TECO is incredibly difficult to use. Hell, it's incredibly difficult to use compared to vi and emacs.