history of emacs and lisps

[polya!max@labrea.stanford.edu (Max Hailperin)]

>> Forgive my stupidity on this answer - but wasn't EMACS originally written in
>> Lisp, like way way back. (i.e. before we were scheme'ing)

>EMACS was first written in TECO.

While it is of course true that EMACS was originally a bunch of MIT
TECO [note that MIT TECO is not the same as DEC TECO] macros (that's
where the "MACS" part of the name comes from, if my memory serves me),
I believe there is some grain of truth in the original posting.

The second implementation of EMACS, very early on, was in Maclisp --
Multics EMACS.  Unless I've got my history muddled, Multics EMACS does
predate Scheme.  Therefore, there is indeed a historical grounding for
the use of Maclisp-family Lisps in writing EMACSes.

Of course, that's far from the whole story: there's also issues like
RMS's own background and tastes.