🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Dec15....@world.std.com> b...@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
}
}>Hmmmm... I always thought that it was Text Editor And Corrector, but yesterday,
}>my girlfriend was quizzing me with PDP-11 trivia cards, and she came across a
}>card which claimed that it stands for *Tape* Editor and Corrector. I have a
}>hard time believing this one... does anyone know anything about this meaning?
}
}I've always heard *Tape* Editor and COrrector. Remember that back when
}TECO was first a thing most files were stored on tapes (microtapes.)

Thats what I always knew it as. I think the Data General "clone" was called
"Text ..." something. I assume everyone knows the story of DG/DEC "cloning".

}Sort of gives the term "diskless workstation" a whole different
}meaning.

At the time that was the usual way to operate. PDP-8, ASR33 (110 baud) which
came with a PAPER tape reader/punch. If you were lucky you had 1-2K bytes
of CORE memory to play with too.

}In fact, TECO under VMS (1.6, TECO running in the PDP-11 emulator) did
}a damn good job of playing with mag tapes and I often used it to
}diddle a munged tape (or is that mung a diddled tape?)

One of the things TECO really did well was diddle things at the bit/byte
level. But yes you could indeed screw things up VERY well if you weren't
careful.

}Notice the P and Y commands in TECO which pull in and roll out block
}sized chunks one at a time for editing? Now think about how you might
}design an editor for tape files...uh huh, you got it. Now you know why
}it has those strange commands.

"Strange" - no way, they make PERFECT sense if you remember that you *Y*ank
a section of paper tape, edit it, then *P*unch it to a new tape. Instant
backup too. :-)

Did get a little slow if you wanted to say do a FORTRAN compile. I only did
one once and it took 6 hours for a 200 line program. Almost 4 hours of that
was reading the Compiler and Linker program tapes.

}We keep TECO in /usr/games/teco on our machine.

Actually I think TECO has less justification for being there than 99% of the
"do your thinking for you" editors on the market today. Nothing bugs me more
than an editor that screws up a file by just reading it then rewriting it.

But then I almost always have some obscure binary on files I edit. :-)

}Anyone have any good TECO macros? DEC TECO, I have no access to ITS
}TECO (er, as some would say, REAL TECO.) I once wrote a full screen,
}menu driven help utility for VMS in TECO which used the VMS HELP
}files.  Unfortunately 2.0 screwed it up by using load libraries or
}some such silliness to store HELP files. I never figured out why.

HELP with TECO! ARRRGGGGGH sacrilege! Probably useless too! <esc> <esc>

Don't have any macros saved, I threw out all my paper tapes some years back.

           *Mike Waters    AA4MW/7  wat...@dover.sps.mot.com *
We can defeat gravity.  The problem is the paperwork involved.