Emacs Timeline.
by Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
8-Mar-99


Someone prodded me into drawing up a timeline of the Emacs family tree. Let me know if you have any additions/corrections.

This isn't intended to be a complete list of everything that has ever called itself Emacs -- as Craig Finseth's periodic posting of emacs implementations shows that would be much larger than this.

However, I think this is fairly accurate for the GNU/Lucid/X Emacs part of the world, and their important predecessors. (An explanation of how and why the FSF Emacs / Lucid Emacs split came about is over here.)

My chronology of Epoch is spotty; I couldn't find very many hard dates for it. For example, I don't know whether 3.2 was the first release available to the public, or whether there were earlier releases. I believe there were, but I haven't been able to find any.

There probably ought to be something about MULE and NEmacs in here, but I wasn't able to find any dates or numbers for those.

I've drawn lines only where code is shared, not merely ideas.


1976    EMACS
        by Richard Stallman
        ran on ITS and TWENEX (Tops-20)
        written in TECO and PDP 10 assembly.

1978    Multics Emacs
        by Bernie Greenberg
        written in MacLisp;
        first version to use Lisp as
        an extension language.

                               EINE (EINE Is Not EMACS)
                               by Dan Weinreb and Mike McMahon
                               for MIT Lisp Machine
                                   |
                                   |
1979                           ZWEI (ZWEI Was EINE Initially)
                               by Dan Weinreb and Mike McMahon
                               (later known as ZMACS)

1981                                           Gosling Emacs
                                               by James Gosling
                                               written in C; with
                                               "Mocklisp" as ext. lang.
                             ______________________/
                            /
                           /
1984?                     /             Hemlock
                         /              by Rob MacLachlan et al
                        /               written in Spice Lisp
                       /                (CMU Common Lisp)
1985  GNU Emacs 15.34 (early 85)
      by Richard Stallman
             |
             |
      GNU Emacs 16.56 (15-jul-85)
      (Gosling code expunged
       for copyright reasions)
             |
             |
      GNU Emacs 16.60 (19-sep-85)
      (contained first patches from
      the net, including preliminary
      SYSV support)
             |
             |
      GNU Emacs 17.36 (20-dec-85)
      (included TeX manual; first
      version that worked on SYSV
      out of the box)
             |
             |
1986  GNU Emacs 18.24 beta (2-oct-86)
             |
1987  GNU Emacs 18.41 (22-mar-87)
             |
      GNU Emacs 18.45 (2-jun-87)
             |
      GNU Emacs 18.49 (18-sep-87)
             |
1988  GNU Emacs 18.50 (13-feb-88)
             |
      GNU Emacs 18.51 (7-may-88)
             |
      GNU Emacs 18.52 (1-sep-88)
             |
1989  GNU Emacs 18.53 (24-feb-89)                           Epoch (1989?)
             |                                              by Simon Kaplan,
             |                                              Chris Love, et al
             |                                                        |
      GNU Emacs 18.54 (26-apr-89)                                     |
             |                                                        |
      GNU Emacs 18.55 (23-aug-89)                                     |
             |   \    \                                               |
             |    \    \____________________________________________  |
             |     \                                                \ |
1990         |      \                                     Epoch 3.2 (11-dec-90)
             |       \                                                |
             |        \____ (sporadic work on                         |
             |               GNU Emacs 19 begins)                     |
             |                     |                                  |
             |                     |                      Epoch 4.0 (27-aug-90)
             |                     |                                  |
1991  GNU Emacs 18.57 (??-jan-91)  |                                  |
             |                     |                                  |
      GNU Emacs 18.58 (??-???-91)  |                                  |
             |                     |___________                       |
             |                     |           \                      |
1992         |                     |   Lucid Emacs 19.0 (??-apr-92)   |
             |                     |   by Jamie Zawinski et al        |
             |                     |      |                           |
             |                     |   Lucid Emacs 19.1 (4-jun-92)    |
             |                     |      |                           |
      GNU Emacs 18.59 (31-oct-92)  |   Lucid Emacs 19.2 (19-jun-92)   |
             |                     |      |                           |
             |                    /    Lucid Emacs 19.3 (9-sep-92)    |
             |                   /        |                           |
             |                  /      Lucid Emacs 19.4 (21-jan-93)   |
             |   ______________/          |                           |
             |  /                      Lucid Emacs 19.6 (9-apr-93)    |
             | /                          |                           |
1993  GNU Emacs 19.7 beta (22-may-93)     |                          /|
      first public v19 beta               |                         / |
             |                            |                        /  |
      GNU Emacs 19.8 beta (27-may-93)     |                       /   |
             |        \                   |                      /    |
             |         \________________  |  ___________________/     |
             |                          \ | /                         |
             |                         Lucid Emacs 19.8 (6-sep-93)    |
             |                         (Epoch merger, preliminary     |
             |                          I18N support)                 |
             |                            |                           |
      GNU Emacs 19.22 beta (28-nov-93)    |                           |
             |                            |                           |
1994         |                         Lucid Emacs 19.9 (12-may-94)  /
             |                         (scrollbars, Athena)         /
             |                            |                        /
      GNU Emacs 19.23 beta (17-may-94)    |                       /
             |            \               |                      /
             |             \____________  |  ___________________/
             |                          \ | /
             |                         Lucid Emacs 19.10 (27-may-94)
             |                         last JWZ release
             |                            |
      GNU Emacs 19.24 beta (16-may-94)    |
             |                            |
             |                         XEmacs 19.11 (13-sep-94)
             |                         Lucid Emacs -> XEmacs renaming.
             |                         now maintained by Chuck Thompson
             |                         and Ben Wing.
             |                            |
      GNU Emacs 19.27 beta (14-sep-94)    |
             |                            |
      GNU Emacs 19.28 (1-nov-94)          |
      first official v19 release          |
             |                            |
1995         |                         XEmacs 19.12 (23-jun-95)
             |                         (tty support)    \
      GNU Emacs 19.29 (21-jun-95)         |              \
             |                            |        (work on 20.x begins)
      GNU Emacs 19.30 (24-nov-95)         |               :
             |           \                |               :
             |            \_____________  |
             |                          \ |
             |                         XEmacs 19.13 (1-sep-95)
1996  GNU Emacs 19.31 (25-may-96)         |
             |                         XEmacs 19.14 (23-jun-96)
      GNU Emacs 19.34 (21-aug-96)         |                   \
1997         |                         XEmacs 20.0 (9-feb-97)  \
             |                         now maintained by        \
             |                         Steve Baur                |
             |                            |           XEmacs 19.15 (26-mar-97)
             |                            |                      |
             |                         XEmacs 20.1 (15-apr-97)   |
             |                            |                      |
             |                         XEmacs 20.2 (16-may-97)   |
      GNU Emacs 20.1 (17-sep-97)          |                      |
             |                            |                      |
      GNU Emacs 20.2 (20-sep-97)          |                      |
             |                            |           XEmacs 19.16 (31-oct-97)
             |                            |
             |                         XEmacs 20.3 (21-nov-97)
             |                            |
1998         |                         XEmacs 20.4 (28-feb-98)
             |
      GNU Emacs 20.3 (19-aug-98)


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