>EMACS was like THE original freeware product.=A0 It and most of its
    >clones are freeware, and most are available with full source code.

    You wouldn't be LIKE from Southern California or something would ya dude?

Nah, it just seems that certain vocal manerisms help "personalize" printed
text, sort of like the emoticons and whatnot.  In this case, it's supposed
to add a certain degree of vehemance that wouldn't be obvious in pure text.

I got involved with emacs when I was working on a clone for tops-10.  When
I became a tops20 systems programmer, it was the obvious choice, and an
added bonus was that it ran on the "other" systems too.  I haven't run into
a particularly good reason to use anything else.

I still use a unix-clone of a 15 year old tops20 mail reader too.

Some times, new isn't better, eh?

 :-)
BillW