Over at Linux User Space, Leo and Dan have a short video giving a reasonably comprehensive history of Emacs:
Would you look at that! Another text editor #history hitting @tilvids today.
This time, it’s #Emacs.
Oh, you didn’t know #TECO preceded it? Well, you do now.https://t.co/Y5Qzpb6LX9
— Linux User Space (@LinuxUserSpace) February 16, 2023
They start with TECO and the infamous tower of Babel that grew out of every developer having their own set of macros leading Guy Steele and Richard Stallman to develop a standard set of Editing MACroS that everyone could use. From there, they trace Emacs’ development from a set of TECO macros to the current day GNU Emacs. Along the way, they discuss Gosling Emacs and its relation to GNU Emacs as well as the Lucid version that eventually became XEmacs.
The video is 14 and a half minutes long so it shouldn’t be too hard to fit in. If you’re freaked out by the warning about leaking your IP address in the Twitter link, just follow the above link and watch it on YouTube.