From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
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)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
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.