Emacs Information
This document will eventually have information on various modes and
features of GNU Emacs, including a GNU Emacs Reference Card for
version 19.
The GNU Emacs FAQ is available.
What is Emacs?
In 1975, Richard Stallman developed the first Emacs, an extensible,
customizable real-time display editor. GNU Emacs is his second
implementation. It offers true Lisp--smoothly integrated into the
editor--for writing extensions, and provides an interface to the MIT X
Window System. In addition to its powerful native command set,
extensions which emulate other popular editors are distributed: vi, EDT
(DEC's VMS editor) and Gosling (aka Unipress) Emacs. It has many other
features which make it a full computing support environment.
* GNU Emacs 18
GNU Emacs 18.59 runs on many Unix systems. In hardware order: Alliant
FX/80 & FX/2800, Altos 3068, Amdahl (UTS), Apollo, AT&T (3Bs & 7300 PC),
DG Aviion, Bull DPX/2 (2nn & 3nn) CCI 5/32 & 6/32, Celerity, Convex,
Digital (DECstation 3100 & 5000 (PMAXes), Mips, VAX (BSD, SysV & VMS)),
Motorola Delta 147 & 187 Dual, Elxsi 6400, Encore (DPC, APC & XPC),
Gould, HP (9000 series 200, 300, 700 & 800, but not 500), HLH Orion
(original & 1/05), IBM (RS/6000 (AIX), RT/PC (4.2 & AIX) & PS/2 (AIX (386
only))), ISI (Optimum V, 80386), Intel 860 & 80386 (BSD, Esix, SVR3,
SVR4, SCO, ISC, IX, AIX & others (see ``MS-DOS Diskettes''. & ``Free
Software for Microcomputers'')), Iris (2500, 2500 Turbo & 4D), Masscomp,
MIPS, National Semiconductor 32000, NeXT (Mach), NCR Tower 32 (SVR2 &
SVR3), Nixdorf Targon 31, Nu (TI & LMI), pfa50, Plexus, Prime EXL,
Pyramid (original & MIPS), Sequent (Balance & Symmetry), SONY News (m68k
& MIPS), Stride (system release 2), all Suns including 386i (all SunOS &
some Solaris vers.), Tadpole, Tahoe, Tandem Integrity S2, Tektronix
(16000 & 4300), Triton 88, Ustation E30 (SS5E), Whitechapel (MG1) &
Wicat.
In operating system order: AIX (RS/6000, RT/PC, 386-PS/2), BSD (vers.
4.1, 4.2, 4.3), DomainOS, Esix (386), HP-UX (HP 9000 series 200, 300,
700, 800 but not 500), ISC (386), IX (386), Mach, Microport, NewsOS
(Sony m68k & MIPS) SCO (386), SVR0 (Vax, AT&T 3Bs), SVR2, SVR3, SVR4,
Solaris 2.0, SunOS, UTS (Amdahl), Ultrix (vers. 3.0, 4,1), Uniplus 5.2
(Dual machines), VMS (vers. 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 5.5) & Xenix (386).
* GNU Emacs 19
New features in Emacs 19 include: multiple X windows ("frames" to
Emacs), with either a separate X window for the minibuffer or a
minibuffer attached to each X window; property lists associated with
regions of text in a buffer; multiple fonts and colors defined by those
properties; simplified and improved processing of function keys, mouse
clicks and mouse movement; X selection processing, including clipboard
selections; hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain
range; menu bars and popup menus defined by keymaps; scrollbars; before
and after change hooks; source-level debugging of Emacs Lisp programs;
European character sets support; floating point numbers; improved buffer
allocation, using a new mechanism capable of returning storage to the
system when a buffer is killed; interfacing with the X resource manager;
GNU configuration scheme support; good RCS support; & many updated
libraries.
New features in Emacs 19.23 include X toolkit support, dialog boxes,
operation on MS-DOS, much faster text properties, keyboard equivalents
shown automatically in menus, and text that highlights when you move the
mouse over it.
Unlike some other recent derivations of Emacs, Emacs 19 from the Free
Software Foundation continues to work on character-only terminals as
well as under the MIT X Window System.
Emacs 19.23 is known to work on, in hardware order: Bull DPX/2 2nn & 3nn
(SVR3) & sps7 (SVR2); Clipper; Cubix QBx (SysV); Data General Aviion
(DGUX); DEC MIPS (Ultrix 4.2 & OSF/1, not VMS); Elxsi 6400 (SysV); Gould
Power Node & NP1 (4.2 & 4.3BSD); Harris Night Hawk 1200 and 3000, 4000
and 5000 (cxux); Honeywell XPS100 (SysV); HP 9000 series 200, 300, 700,
800 (4.3BSD or HP-UX 7, 8, 9); Intel i386 & i486 (386BSD, AIX, BSDI/386,
FreeBSD, Esix, ISC, Linux, MS-DOS, NetBSD, SCO3.2v4 with ODT, SysV,
Xenix); IBM RS6000 (AIX 3.2); IBM RT/PC (AIX or BSD); Motorola Delta 147
& 187 (SVR3, SVR4, & m88kbcs); National Semiconductor 32K (Genix); NeXT
(BSD or Mach 2 w/ NeXTStep 3.0); Prime EXL (SysV); Pyramid (BSD);
Sequent Symmetry (BSD); SGI Iris 4D (Irix 4.x & 5.x); Sony News/RISC
(NewsOS); Sun 3 & 4, SPARC 1, 1+, 2, 10 & Classic (SunOS 4.0, 4.1,
Solaris 2.0-2.3); Tadpole 68k (SysV); Tektronix XD88 (SVR3) & 4300
(BSD); & Titan P2 & P3 (SysV).
In operating system order: AIX (i386, RS6000, RT/PC); 4.1, 4.2, 4.3BSD
(i386, Gould Power Node & NP1, HP9000 series 300, NeXT, Pyramid,
Symmetry, Tektronix 4300, RT/PC); DG/UX (Aviion); Esix (i386); FreeBSD
(i386); Genix (ns32k); HP-UX 7, 8, 9 (HP 9000 series 200, 300, 700, 800,
but not 500); Irix 4 & 5 (Iris 4D); ISC (i386); Linux (i386); NetBSD
(i386, HP9000 series 300); Mach 2 & 3 (i386, NeXT); SCO 3.2v4 (i386);
SVR2 (Bull sps7); SVR3 (Bull DPX/2 2nn & 3nn, Motorola Delta 147 & 187,
Tektronix XD88); SVR4 (Motorola Delta 147 & 187); Solaris 2 (SPARC 1,
1+, 2, 10, Classic); SunOS 4.0, 4.1 (Sun 3 & 4, SPARC 1, 1+, 2, 10 &
Classic); Ultrix 4.2 (DEC MIPS); & Xenix (i386).
Other configurations supported by Emacs 18 should work with few changes
in Emacs 19; as users tell us more about their experiences with different
systems, we will augment the list. Also see ``Forthcoming GNUs''.
