This version of MicroEmacs is based on an early MicroEmacs release of 3.8 in 1988, the origins of which are unknown, except to say it was delivered on a unmarked 5 1/2" floppy disk.
The program was originally ported to a Motorola MVME147 UNIX box as an alternative to vi. Reliability of the program proved to be a problem as it constantly crashed. In an attempt to rectify the problems the development of MicroEmacs '99 commenced.
Development has continued from 1988 through to today, on the whole oblivious to further developments of the existing MicroEmacs program. This was due to no Internet access. It was not until 1996 the next version of MicroEmacs and mewin (Microsoft Windows (TM) port of the same program) was downloaded from the Internet and compared. By this time MicroEmacs '99 was radically different and we were not about to mesh the two together - that would be a step backwards.
Development of MicroEmacs '99 has been biased towards the UNIX platform, as most of the early development was performed in the UNIX domain. The first of the window servers was X-Windows, which in turn has shaped the implementation of the Microsoft Windows port. Latterly, we have seen the resurgence of the IBM-PC platform which is now commonplace. For the return port to the DOS environment, and subsequent development of the Microsoft Windows port, a UNIX like interface was required. Most existing users could not abide the primitive editors found on these machines; Microsoft Windows was an alien and hostile environment when compared with UNIX. Hence, the MicroEmacs '99 interface utilizes UNIX style cut and paste across all platforms.
For portability, MicroEmacs '99 utilizes character rendering on all platforms regardless of the window manager. Under X-Windows and Microsoft Windows, the display is still treated as a character based display, the subtle difference is that the display pane is re-sizable. This means that the scroll bars, fonts etc. are not as slick as they could be, certainly under Microsoft Windows MicroEmacs '99 looks positively primitive!! Regardless of the look, the goal of a common editor across all working platforms has been achieved!
1988-92
1992-1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
Development of MicroEmacs '99 is an on-going process, follows is a list of work items which is currently being undertaken or planned:-
May 1999
October 1998
September 1998
The documentation is all written in UNIX nroff(1) and converted to HTML, Microsoft Windows Help File format and MicroEmacs Help file format.
(c) Copyright JASSPA 1999
Last Modified: 1999/07/12
Generated On: 1999/07/16