Emacs Based User Agent Software

GNU Emacs is an advanced, self-documenting, customizable, extensible, real-time display editor. GNU Emacs is so customizable and extensible that calling it just an editor is a misnomer. Emacs is an Editor Centered User Environment.

Most of editing commands in Emacs are written in Emacs Lisp (elisp). Elisp provides for practically unlimited extension of GNU Emacs.

GNU Emacs runs on 100s of hardware/software platforms. Emacs runs on almost all flavors of UNIX. VMS, TOPS-20, ... are among other operating systems that Emacs has been ported to. GNU Emacs is freely available.

GNU Emacs provides a level of service adequate for providing most basic office services on many hardware/software platforms in a unified fashion.

To better introduce EMACS, the following section has been reproduced from "The new Hacker's Dictionary", hacker.dictionary.

EMACS /ee'maks/ [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a program editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It was originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO under ITS at the MIT AI lab, but the most widely used versions now run under UNIX. It includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time inside it.

Some versions running under window managers iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the editor does not (yet) include. ....