[COFF] TECO (was: History of m6?)

[Clem Cole]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 11:24 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 13 November 2019 at 15:06:19 +0000, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> > I think just about every DEC computer had a version of TECO, right?
>
> I don't recall seeing it on our PDP-8 and -12.  Does anybody else?
> Presumably they were too small for it, but the -8 made up a large part
> of DEC's production.
>

Lar's comment about Richie and Stan having worked on a PDP-8 version sounds
reasonable.  I don't know Stan's full story as I never worked with him
closely, but Lorin Gale hired Richie and Jack into DEC out of Brooklyn Poly
to work on the PDP-12 in about 1972; where they had been PDP-10 hackers as
students/roommates (and nearly 50 years, multiple children and marriages
later, still nearly inseparable/often hard to tell apart).

Anyway, the PDP-8 was the development system for the 12.  So Richie wanting
a more compatible TECO would be something he could/would have created.

My memory is that TECO-8 was sort of like the PC's micro-emacs in that is
was written in the key/model after it's namesake, using TECO-10 in syntax
and commands, but very limited and much smaller and could run on a more
resource limited system.   It was certainly true for TECO-11 the PDP-10's
macros (EMACS) would not work there and I think the same was true for
TECO-8.

That said, I did not mess with either enough, as I came late the PDP-8/12
work, and really started with PDP-11s and Vaxen.   So we would need to talk
to a few people a little older, like Richie or Jack Burness who were there.

Clem
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