teco

TECO
 /tee'koh/, n.,v. obs.

   1. [originally an acronym for `[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector';
   later, `Text Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor developed at MIT
   and modified by just about everybody. With all the dialects included,
   TECO may have been the most prolific editor in use before {EMACS}, to
   which it was directly ancestral. Noted for its powerful
   programming-language-like features and its unspeakably {hairy} syntax.
   It is literally the case that every string of characters is a valid
   TECO program (though probably not a useful one); one common game used
   to be mentally working out what the TECO commands corresponding to
   human names did.

   2. vt. Originally, to edit using the TECO editor in one of its
   infinite variations (see below).

   3. vt.,obs. To edit even when TECO is not the editor being used! This
   usage is rare and now primarily historical.

   As an example of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that takes a
   list of names such as:

   Loser, J. Random
   Quux, The Great
   Dick, Moby

   sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts the
   surname last, removing the comma, to produce the following:

   Moby Dick
   J. Random Loser
   The Great Quux

   The program is

   [1 J^P$L$$
   J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$

   (where ^B means `Control-B' (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually an {alt}
   or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).

   In fact, this very program was used to produce the second, sorted list
   from the first list. The first hack at it had a {bug}: GLS (the
   author) had accidentally omitted the @ in front of F^B, which as
   anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong Thing}. It worked fine the second
   time. There is no space to describe all the features of TECO, but it
   may be of interest that ^P means `sort' and J<.-Z; ... L> is an
   idiomatic series of commands for `do once for every line'.

   In mid-1991, TECO is pretty much one with the dust of history, having
   been replaced in the affections of hackerdom by {EMACS}. Descendants
   of an early (and somewhat lobotomized) version adopted by DEC can
   still be found lurking on VMS and a couple of crufty {PDP-11}
   operating systems, however, and ports of the more advanced MIT
   versions remain the focus of some antiquarian interest. See also
   {retrocomputing}, {write-only language}.
    

TECO

   <editor, text> /tee'koh/ (Originally an acronym for "[paper]
   Tape Editor and COrrector"; later, "Text Editor and
   COrrector"]) A {text editor} developed at {MIT} and modified
   by just about everybody.  With all the dialects included, TECO
   may have been the most prolific editor in use before {Emacs},
   to which it was directly ancestral.  The first {Emacs} editor
   was written in TECO.

   It was noted for its powerful programming-language-like
   features and its unspeakably {hairy} {syntax} (see {write-only
   language}).  TECO programs are said to resemble {line noise}.
   Every string of characters is a valid TECO program (though
   probably not a useful one); one common game used to be predict
   what the TECO commands corresponding to human names did.

   As an example of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that
   takes a list of names such as:

   	Loser, J. Random
   	Quux, The Great
   	Dick, Moby

   sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts
   the surname last, removing the comma, to produce the
   following:

   	Moby Dick
   	J. Random Loser
   	The Great Quux

   The program is

   	[1 J^P$L$$
   	J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$

   (where ^B means "Control-B" (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually
   an {alt} or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).

   In fact, this very program was used to produce the second,
   sorted list from the first list.  The first hack at it had a
   {bug}: GLS (the author) had accidentally omitted the "@" in
   front of "F^B", which as anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong
   Thing}.  It worked fine the second time.  There is no space to
   describe all the features of TECO, but "^P" means "sort" and
   "J<.-Z; ... L>" is an idiomatic series of commands for "do
   once for every line".

   By 1991, {Emacs} had replaced TECO in hacker's affections but
   descendants of an early (and somewhat lobotomised) version
   adopted by {DEC} can still be found lurking on {VMS} and a
   couple of {crufty} {PDP-11} {operating systems}, and ports of
   the more advanced MIT versions remain the focus of some
   antiquarian interest.

   See also {retrocomputing}.

   (ftp://usc.edu/) for VAX/VMS, Unix, MS-DOS,
   {Macintosh}, {Amiga}.

   [Authro?  Home page?]

   (2001-03-26)
    

TECO
       Tape / Text Editor and COrrector (MIT)