Emacs

Emacs is a special text editor that helps people write and edit documents on computers. It is very flexible and can be changed to fit each person's needs. The most popular version today is called GNU Emacs, which gets updated often with new features.

Emacs has many built-in commands. Users can combine these commands to make shortcuts called macros. This helps make repeated tasks easier. Emacs uses a programming language called Lisp, which lets users create new tools inside the editor. People have made extensions for Emacs to help with many tasks, like managing files, sending e-mail, and playing simple games like Tetris.

The first version of Emacs was made in 1976 by David A. Moon and Guy L. Steele Jr.. It started with extra commands for another editor called TECO. Later, Richard Stallman developed GNU Emacs as part of the GNU Project, making it a free and open source tool that many people use today.

History

Emacs is a powerful text editor that began in the 1970s at the MIT AI Lab. It grew from TECO, an older editor. Richard Stallman learned about a better editor called E at Stanford AI Lab. He used ideas from E to improve TECO. He added macros, which are shortcuts to repeat tasks. This made it easy for users to customize the editor.

The editor was named EMACS, short for Editing MACroS. It became very popular with many computer scientists. Over time, it changed and evolved. GNU Emacs is one of the most well-known versions today.

Implementations

Programmers made many editors inspired by Emacs for different computers. Some early examples include EINE and ZWEI, made for Lisp machines, and Multics Emacs, written in Multics Lisp.

James Gosling made Gosling Emacs in 1981, the first Emacs-like editor for Unix systems. It used C and a language called Mocklisp. Richard Stallman began GNU Emacs in 1984 to offer a free choice. GNU Emacs added many new features and became popular. Other versions like XEmacs and Aquamacs were also made, each with its own special improvements.

Features

Emacs is a text editor for working with text. It can also format and print documents like a word processor when used with programs such as LaTeX, Ghostscript, or a web browser. Emacs helps you work with small parts of text, like words, sentences, paragraphs, and source code.

GNU Emacs shows what you type right away. Older editors made you ask to see the text after changing it.

Almost everything in Emacs is made using functions written in the Lisp programming language. This makes Emacs very flexible. You can change how Emacs works without restarting it.

Emacs keeps text in areas called buffers. Each buffer has important details like where you are typing (the point), selections, and what kind of file it is.

Emacs can remember sequences of actions as macros to repeat tasks. When it starts, Emacs reads special files to let you set up how it works, like changing colors or adding new features.

Emacs comes with help for learning how to use it, including a built-in tutorial.

Culture

Main article: Editor war

The Church of Emacs is a fun idea for people who like using Emacs, a special text editor. It was created by Richard Stallman to celebrate Emacs users in a playful way. In this idea, Emacs is seen as a free and special tool, while another editor called vi is thought of as less open. The Church even has its own online group where people share ideas.

There is also a joke about a problem some Emacs users face, called Emacs pinky. This is when a person's little finger gets tired from pressing certain keys a lot. People have found ways to help with this, like using special keyboard layouts or different settings in Emacs. Some also use special keyboards to make typing easier.