The DICT Development Group

  TECO
       Tape / Text Editor and COrrector (MIT)
       
       

  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
       
           /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/)">(ftp://usc.edu/)+for+VAX/{VMS">ftp://usc.edu/)">(ftp://usc.edu/) for VAX/{VMS, Unix, MS-DOS,
          Macintosh, Amiga.
       
          [Authro?  Home page?]
       
          (2001-03-26)