TECO-64 is:
- A character-oriented editor, primarily used for manipulating text files.
- A pipeline editor that can manipulate files of arbitrary size.
- Capable of editing binary files.
- Portable, because it is not bound to a system-specific GUI or other system-specific features.
- Very small compared with other editors.
- Easy to use for simple editing tasks.
- A programming language that is powerful enough for complex tasks.
TECO (Text Editor and Corrector) was originally developed on the PDP-1 in 1962 by Dan Murphy, and later ported to many other operating systems, especially those using DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) hardware, notably VMS, RSTS/E, TOPS, RSX-11, and RT-11. All of these implementations were written in hardware-specific assembler language.
TECO C was a version created by Pete Siemsen in 1983, and subsequently developed by him and many others, most recently by Tom Almy and Blake McBride. This implementation made it possible for TECO to be ported to non-DEC operating systems such as Linux and Windows.
And although six decades old, it remains in use today.
When TECO C was created, other TECOs were still in development on DEC operating systems. Each of these TECOs had their own version numbers, which could be used in macros or indirect command files to determine which TECO features were available. This allowed users to write code that could be used in multiple operating environments. For example, a user could create a macro that would only use a given command if it was determined that the version of TECO in use supported that feature.
In order to avoid any confusion with other TECOs, the baseline version of TECO C was set to 100, and incremented as subsequent versions were released. The highest version of TECO C is currently 147.
For similar reasons, a baseline version number of 200 was chosen for TECO-64. This is the major version. A minor version and patch version also exist, per GitHub's guidelines. Values for all three can be accessed via the EO command, although only the major version is likely to be significant for TECO macros.
TECO-64 is written in C, for maximum portability, and was inspired by Pete Siemsen's TECO C. Its command set is backwards-compatible with TECO C, as well as other TECOs. TECO-64 was written from scratch to take full advantage of current features of the C language and run-time library.
Version 200 of TECO-64 was primarily developed on Linux, using the GNU toolchain. It has been also compiled and run on Windows and MacOS.
TECO can be used in a command-line mode, as well as a display mode using ncurses.
The commands that implement backwards paging and searching require virtual memory support, but TECO can be used as a simple pipeline editor on systems without virtual memory.
Doxygen must be installed in order to use the doc target.
PC-lint must be installed in order to use the lint and lobs targets.
TECO is intended to be usable in a variety of operating environments. As the methods for building and starting TECO vary from environment to environment, the specifics for getting set up are described in the following separate sections.
TECO-64 Reference Manual - this is a work in progress that has been adapted, corrected, and updated from a user's guide and language reference manual published in May 1990 by Digital Equipment Corporation, Standard TECO Text Editor and Corrector for the VAX, PDP-11, PDP-10, and PDP-8.
The following may be implemented in future versions of TECO.
- Support for compilers other than gcc.
- Support for other operating systems, especially OpenVMS.
- An alternative buffer handling module (e.g., a rope buffer).
- An alternative paging module (to allow backward paging when no virtual memory is available).
Any questions or comments, including bug reports and feature requests, may be sent to [email protected].