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Annotation of src/usr.bin/mg/README, Revision 1.5

1.1 deraadt 1: Mg 2a README May 15, 1988
2:
3: Mg (mg) is a Public Domain EMACS style editor. It is "broadly"
4: compatible with GNU Emacs, the latest creation of Richard M.
5: Stallman, Chief GNUisance and inventor of Emacs. GNU Emacs (and other
6: portions of GNU as they are released) are essentially free, (there are
7: handling charges for obtaining it) and so is Mg. You may never have
8: to learn another editor. (But probably will, at least long enough to
9: port Mg...) Mg was formerly named MicroGnuEmacs, the name change was
1.3 mickey 10: done at the request of Richard Stallman.
1.1 deraadt 11:
12: Mg is not associated with the GNU project, and most of it does not
13: have the copyright restrictions present in GNU Emacs. (However, some
14: of the system dependent modules and the regular expression module do
15: have copyright notices, specificly the VMS/primos termcap routines and
16: the amiga specific routines. Look at the source code for exact
17: copyright restrictions.) The Mg authors individually may or may not
18: agree with the opinions expressed by Richard Stallman in "The GNU
19: Manifesto".
20:
21: Documentation of Mg is in the TeX file mg.tex. This should be
1.5 ! db 22: formatted with the TeX text formatter and printed. A start towards a
1.2 millert 23: mg programmers guide is in mgprog.doc, and some of the changes from 1b
1.1 deraadt 24: are mentioned briefly in mg2a.change.
25:
26: This program is intended to be a small, fast, and portable editor for
1.2 millert 27: people who can't (or don't want to) run real Emacs for one reason
28: or another. It is compatible with GNU because there shouldn't be
29: any reason to learn more than one Emacs flavor. We have excised
1.1 deraadt 30: most MicroEMACS features that were incompatible with the big brother,
31: and added missing features that seemed essential.
32:
33: There are at least two other major versions of MicroEMACS in
34: circulation. One comes from Daniel Lawrence, (based on an old version
35: from Dave Conroy) and is several versions have been posted to usenet.
36: It uses a 3.x version numbering scheme, and the latest I know about is
37: 3.9i. It has some features not found in Mg, missing others, is
38: bigger, and is incompatible with GNU Emacs. It might be a better
39: choice for you if you *must* have something not present here and can't
40: run GNU.
41:
42: Another variety uses a different numbering scheme, and is up to v30.
43: This also comes from mod.sources, and is the latest version from the
44: original MicroEMACS author Dave Conroy. Mg is derived from this
45: version, and for the most part has replaced it.
46:
1.5 ! db 47: Mg is continuing to diverge from other MicroEmacs variants.
! 48: Significant modifications would me require to adapt code from either
1.1 deraadt 49: the 3.x strains or v30. Command functions and key mapping, for
50: instance, are completely different.
51:
52: This is the third distribution release of Mg. (It went through four
53: beta releases to iron out the changes made by the various authors.)
54: Prior releases were known as MicroGnuEmacs 1a and MicroGnuEmacs 1b.
55: Beyond the work of Dave Conroy, author of the original public domain
56: v30, the current version contains the work of:
57:
58: blarson@ecla.usc.edu Bob Larson
59: mic@emx.utexas.edu Mic Kaczmarczik
60: mwm@violet.berkeley.edu Mike Meyer
61: sandra@cs.utah.edu Sandra Loosemore
62: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu Michael Portuesi
63: RCKG01M@CALSTATE.BITNET Stephen Walton
64: hakanson@mist.cs.orst.edu Marion Hakanson
65:
1.4 mickey 66: People who have worked on previous versions of Mg:
1.1 deraadt 67:
68: rtech!daveb@sun.com Dave Brower
69:
70: These systems are known to work in the current version:
71:
72: 4.2 & 4.3 BSD Unix, SunOs 3.2, Ultrix-32
73: System V
74: OS9/68k
75: VMS
76: Amiga
77: Primos
78: Atari ST
79:
80: Ms-Dos support is planned, but did not get done in time for this
81: release. (Jeff Siegal <jbs@eddie.mit.edu> was the one doing it.)
1.5 ! db 82: The Ms-Dos files will probably be distributed separately when it
1.1 deraadt 83: becomes available.
84:
85: Cpm/68k support was dropped due to compiler bugs. Eunice support was
86: dropped because of lack of interest. Mg 1b does support those
87: systems.
88:
89: One change to late to make it into mg.tex is readding bsmap-mode (only
90: if BSMAP is #defined when compiling). This is a toggle that controls
91: input mapping to exchange the ^H (backspace) and DEL characters. Like
92: GNU emacs input keymaps, it is not displayed on the mode line and will
93: cause them to be treated as each other for echoing. (With bsmap-mode
94: enabled, DEL will echo ^H in the echo line.)
95:
96:
97: How to Make a Mg
98: ---------------------------
99:
100: On UNIX at least, it's easy. (Note that even on these systems you may
101: want to change a compile time option.) If you have BSD UNIX, do:
102:
103: ln sys/bsd/Makefile .
104: make
105:
106: For System V, do:
107:
108: ln sys/sysv/Makefile .
109: make
110:
111: There are several other directories under sys: osk, vms, amiga, atari,
112: prime. You should follow the directions contained therein to make one
113: of those versions.
114:
1.5 ! db 115: For most systems (everything except the amiga, and atari currently),
1.1 deraadt 116: the termcap terminal definition is used. There is a readme file in
117: the default subdirectory of the sys directory explaining what entries
118: are used and how. (Termcap is a way to do display manipulation in a
119: terminal independent manner.) Besides the normal startup file (usually
120: .mg) terminal specific initialization files may be used. (For
121: example, in .mg.vt100 you may want to (global-set-key "\e[A"
122: 'previous-line) to have the up arrow key work.)
123:
124: Some changes made to make this version more like Gnu Emacs may break
125: startup files. Gnu Emacs 18 has both backward-delete-char and
1.5 ! db 126: delete-backward-char that apparently do the same thing. This version
1.1 deraadt 127: has only the latter because that is what is documented in my manual
128: (version 17) and bound by Gnu Emacs to DEL.
129:
130: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
131:
1.5 ! db 132: Known limitations:
1.1 deraadt 133:
134: Recursive bindings may cause help and key rebinding code to go into
135: an infinite loop, aborting with a stack overflow.
136:
137: Overwrite mode does not work in macros. (Characters are inserted
138: rather than overwriting.)
139:
140: Dired mode has some problems: Rename does not update the buffer.
141: Doing a dired again will update the buffer (whether it needs it or
142: not) and will lose any marks for deletion. .. and . are not
143: recognized as special cases.
144:
145: On systems with 16 bit integers, the kill buffer cannot exceed 32767
146: bytes.
147:
148:
149:
150: New implementation oddities:
151:
152: insert and define-key are new commands corresponding to the mocklisp
153: functions in Gnu Emacs. (Mg does not have non-command functions.)
154: (Mg's insert will only insert one string.)
155:
156: The display wrap code does not work at all like that of GNU emacs.
157:
158: ------------------------------------------------------------------------
159:
160: If you have a change to make that you think should be incorporated
161: into the next version of Mg, send it the mg-support mail
162: list. Addresses are:
163:
164: mg-support%ais1@ecla.usc.edu
165: {cit-vax,sdcrdcf,trwrb}!oberon!ais1!mg-support
166:
167: Support for additional systems and terminals should include being
168: available for beta testing as other changes are made. (Send a short
169: note to mg-support.) Currently, beta test copies of Mg are made
170: available via Internet ftp, so beta testers need access to the
171: Internet. (UUCP sites that are customers of uunet can get it via
172: them. Contact uunet!uunet-request for details.) If you can't reach
173: one of us via a computer network, I suppose you could send a change to
174: my snail mail address below on 5" os9 format disks or 9 track tape
1.5 ! db 175: (ANSI variable label or Prime magsav format), but this effectively
1.1 deraadt 176: rules you out as a potential beta tester. (Don't expect the disk or
1.5 ! db 177: tape back unless you include a SASE with sufficient postage.) I will
1.1 deraadt 178: not be sending out copies on magnetic media, so please don't ask. If
179: you somehow got an incomplete or non-standard copy, (i.e. missing one
180: of the sys directories mentioned here as working) complain to who you
181: got it from not to me.
182:
183: Robert Larson
184: 309 S. Alexandria Ave.
185: Apt. 117
186: Los Angeles, CA 90020
187:
188: Alternatively, and under the same conditions, you can send either a 3"
189: AmigaDOS format disk or a 9 track tape (Unix tar format) to:
190:
191: Mike Meyer
192: P.O. Box 4730
193: Berkeley, CA 94704
1.3 mickey 194: