RMODE text editor

[larsbrinkhoff]

DM's Emacs-like TECO-based editor.

Some information from @dlebling618 here:
https://youtu.be/FXdmo2j_CiQ?t=3026

[larsbrinkhoff]

.TECO.; RMODE ARCHIV
.TECO.; RMODE BITS
.TECO.; RMODE CHART
.TECO.; RMODE DOC
.TECO.; RMODE RECENT
.TECO.; MODE ARCHIV
.TECO.; MODE RECENT
.TECO.; MODE DOC
.TECO.; MODE (INIT)
.TECO.; MODELD 43
.TECO.; MODEPR 36

.TECO.; MODEDF 177
.TECO.; MODETA 114
SYS1; TS RMODE link to .TECO.; TS RMODE
.TECO.; TS RMODE link to .TECO.; MOD928 >
.TECO.; TECPUR 928

[larsbrinkhoff]

Maybe:
HAROLD; RMODE 3
HAROLD; RMODE ABBREV
HAROLD; RMODE CMNDS
MRBSYS; RMODE 32
WJL; RMODE NOTES
WJL; RMODE TMACS
WJL; ABOUT RMODE

[larsbrinkhoff]

Probably ported to TOPS-20:
\mm.teco.2 \moby.bkd.1 \moby.rvb.1 \modedf.teco.185 \modeld.teco.10 \modepr.teco.1 \modeta.teco.117 \modetw.teco.49 \pprint.teco.1 \rmode.ctl.1 \rmode.recent.7

[larsbrinkhoff]

The files MODEDF, MODETA, MOD928, and TECPUR 928 are enough to run Rmode. It displays a mode line similar to EMACS:

    <=<S-EXP ^I ^G SAFE>=> [MAIN]

^F moves forward one character. ^P and ^N moves back and forward by word. ^L moves to the next line. ^B to select buffer. ^A selects some kind of mode. Altmode doesn't seem to do much. ^E to load a macro library.

Ah, ^A can set a mode which is some kind of unit by which to move the cursor. W is Word. L is List. S is S-exp. N is Normal. R is Raw. T is Text. There are also other modes like Safety and Auto Indent.

[larsbrinkhoff]

A file called RMODE.INIT found with the German translation of Zork. Maybe evidence someone at Infocom used Rmode on their DEC-20?

https://github.com/historicalsource/zork-german/blob/master/rmode.init

[larsbrinkhoff]

Missing manual:
"RMODE: A Real-time Edit Facility" (SYS.04.07-1), P. David Lebling, R. V. Baron, Bruce K. Daniels, 1977.

[larsbrinkhoff]

From LCS Progress Report 16, July 1978 - June 1979:

Rmode, a real-time display text editor, was modified to run on Tops-20 (Lebling), and now has a common source compatible with both ITS and Tops-20.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Mailing list:

(DM-RMODE-USERS (EQV-LIST [.INFO.;RMODE MAIL] AC BERN BTB JSK PDL SKS 
              (JHAVERTY BBNE) (MARKT XX) (SWG XX) TAA))

[larsbrinkhoff]

Character	Action
^A	Set mode
^B	Select buffer
^C	Copy to Q-reg
^D	Move down
^E	Prefix character for I/O
^F	Move forward
^G	Get from Q-reg
^H	???
^I	Tab
^J, ^M	Line break
^K	Kill
^L	Move to last character on line
^N	Move to next unit
^O	Prefix character
^P	Move to previous unit
^Q	???
^R	Move reverse
^T	???
^U	Move up
^V	??? Asks Argument:
^W	??? Some kind of kill
^X	Delete forward
^Y	Line break (?)

[larsbrinkhoff]

By 1976, packages of TECO macros abounded in the MIT AI lab, each aiming to maximize the scope of TECO's editing power. These included TECMAC (developed by John L. Kulp and Richard L. Bryan), TMACS (developed by Eugene C. Ciccarelli, Charles B. Frankston, Richard D. Greenblatt, Earl A. Killian, David A. Moon, Guy L. Steele Jr., and others), RMODE (developed by Robert V. Baron), DOC (developed by Vaughan R. Pratt), and MACROS (developed by R. Bruce Roberts).

http://www.codeartnow.com/hacker-art-1/macsimizing-teco

[larsbrinkhoff]

Hello @jh95468,

I see (JHAVERTY BBNE) mentioned above. Was RMODE used at BBN?

[larsbrinkhoff]

An Infocom memo dated 12/12/88 says RMODE source files will not be moved from Fred to the new Sun file server.

https://archive.org/details/InfocomCabinetMemos1988/page/n81

[jh95468]

Re (JHAVERTY BBNE) in the RMODE users.... I don't remember using RMODE at BBN. But OTOH I don't remember precisely what editor I did use there either. It was likely just TECO. I moved from MIT-DM to BBN in the summer of 1977, so it's probable that I took some RMODE stuff with me, and my email was changed from JFH@MIT-DM to JHAVERTY@BBNE. That (EQV-LIST ...) construct was not how mailing lists were kept in the DM mail system, but may have been how lists were stored in AI/ML/MC (KLH's code). I don't recall ever getting RMODE running at BBN on Tenex; it's quite likely that the BBN TECO and MIT TECO were sufficiently different that the code wasn't portable. I think PDL changed it later to make it compatible with TOPS20 and ITS, but I'm not sure it ever ran on Tenex.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Hello @taa01776,

Does it seem correct that the RMODE text editor was used in the Dynamic Modeling group, and then on the Infocom FRED DEC-20 until around 1988?

[taa01776]

It was the editor of choice in DM, and would’ve continued to be used as long as we had MIT TECO, so on XX and then Fred. Of course, we had to do something else on the VAX farm that LCS acquired in the early ‘80s. Don’t remember exactly when Fred got retired; about the first thing I did as part of moving Infocom develop from Fred to A/UX was port Emacs, because god knows nobody was going to use vi. -ta

From: Lars Brinkhoff notifications@github.com Sent: Monday, June 10, 2019 3:06 AM To: PDP-10/its its@noreply.github.com Cc: Anderson, Timothy A. taa@stresearch.com; Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [PDP-10/its] RMODE text editor (#1614)

Hello @taa01776https://github.com/taa01776,

Does it seem correct that the RMODE text editor was used in the Dynamic Modeling group, and then on the Infocom FRED DEC-20 until around 1988?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/PDP-10/its/issues/1614?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAM5GXMVLJAQIZ5WXP2WCXTPZX4M5A5CNFSM4HR5LUN2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODXJDELY#issuecomment-500314671, or mute the threadhttps://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAM5GXLO2YGS3LVB5R55JXDPZX4M5ANCNFSM4HR5LUNQ.

[dlebling618]

I know I used to have copies of the full RMODE manual (the one listed as "missing" in your list). I also had copies of the shorter cheat-sheet version produced for Infocom users. I would have sworn I still had the full manual, but a thorough search of my archives did not turn it up.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thanks for checking!

[larsbrinkhoff]

We now have the file %SYS; 0407 XPDL06, " RMODE: A Real-Time Edit Facility".

[larsbrinkhoff]

First mention of RMODE in DM .TAPE directories is .MSGS.; RMODE 1 from February 1975.

[dlebling618]

Re: JFH comment from June. My recollection is that there was a profusion of TECOs, all descendants of the original (from TMRC?): DEC had one, BBN had one, MIT had one, etc. Only MIT TECO had the many additions (mostly done by RMS) that made things like EMACS and RMODE possible.

Bob Baron wrote and for a long time maintained RMODE. Eventually, only DM folks were using it, and I started maintaining it there, which mostly consisted of minor tweaks to keep up with whatever RMS had done to TECO itself lately. Since Infocom was a descendant of DM, we had RMODE there.

[larsbrinkhoff]

LCS Progress Report 16:

Rmode, a real-time display text editor, was modified to run on Tops-20 (Lebling), and now has a common source compatible with both ITS and Tops-20.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Rmode in use at Infocom. From a 1985 BBC documentary.