The very first text editor 3699

Yup. Now go read my reply to his question :-). I tried to describe a TECO command sequence and f***ed it all up because I had to subsbreastute $ (dollar sign) instead of the automatic finger twinkling on the keys. I do not envy your editing future. EMACS caused JMF to hit the TTY; he got so frustrated and hated it. It was an abomination to even mention TECO in the same sentence with that other thing. But I'm showing my bias slip.

Suggestion: If you use EMACS, you will constantly screw yourself in the most obscure places. I'd start using an editor that is as unlike TECO as possible. That way your fingers will never do anything automatically but always ask, and then wait, for your brain to help.

My condolences for losing your access to a useful system.

hmm...I wonder if you could package something so that whenever you typed TECO FOO.BAR it would fire up a VMS emulator, haul over the file, let you edit it, push the file back, and then tidy up, pretending that you were editing on your regular system. With today's gear, it wouldn't even seem slow. It would probably seem as fast as trying to edit a 200 block file on a KA system with an RP01.

Gawd...what an extreme hack so one can get useful work done!

BAH