EMACS

EMACS /ee'maks/ n.  [from Editing MACroS] The ne plus
   ultra of hacker editors, a programmable text editor with an entire
   LISP system inside it.  It was originally written by Richard
   Stallman in {TECO} under {{ITS}} at the MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554
   described it as "an advanced, self-documenting, customizable,
   extensible real-time display editor".  It has since been
   reimplemented any number of times, by various hackers, and versions
   exist that run under most major operating systems.  Perhaps the
   most widely used version, also written by Stallman and now called
   "{GNU} EMACS" or {GNUMACS}, runs principally under UNIX.
   It includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and
   receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their {tube time}
   inside it.  Other variants include {GOSMACS}, CCA EMACS,
   UniPress EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove, epsilon, and MicroEMACS.

   Some EMACS versions running under window managers iconify as an
   overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the
   editor does not (yet) include.  Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too
   {heavyweight} and {baroque} for their taste, and expand the
   name as `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy reliance
   on keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}.  Other spoof
   expansions include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping',
   `Eventually `malloc()'s All Computer Storage', and `EMACS
   Makes A Computer Slow' (see {{recursive acronym}}).  See
   also {vi}.