TECO (was: Re: FORTRAN (was Re: indentation))

François Pinard pinard at IRO.UMontreal.CA
Fri Dec 10 22:18:02 EST 1999


aahz at netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) writes:

> >Jim (who once started to argue with Marvin Minsky without knowing who he
> >was)

I will always remember the first time I met Marvin, quite a long while ago.
I was invited by Seymour Papert and Cinthia Solomon (some of you might know
them?) to spend a few days in the AI labs of the MIT.  I did not know that
Marvin Minsky was working there (yet the name was familiar to me already,
because older people told me about him, and got me to see some of his books).

While walking in, I merely saw the top of his half-bold head facing me, bent
as he was over his TFH machine (a CPU specialized towards turtle graphics),
with a soldering gun I guess, as tiny smoke was climbing up through him,
from the table.  Seymour told me who he was, and that he was just beginning
repairs after a power supply burned out, due to some short-circuit.
Not a fun day for him, apparently.  But Marvin, his daughter Margaret,
and all the team in fact, have been absolutely superb with me all along,
while I was there.  That's one of the good rememberings of my naive youth.

Among many, many interesting projects, ideas, prototypes and machines,
they showed me a terminal (no much personal computers at that time! :-),
maybe using around 2400 bauds, in which the cursor was running like hell
all over the screen to balance et re-indent LISP expressions, in full
duplex with the typing.  They told me that this was a sophisticated TECO
application, for which they felt really proud.  I do not know exactly what
it was, but I later wondered if it was not the original EMACS, there...

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard




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