Frustrated, Steele took it upon himself to the solve
the problem. He gathered together the four different
macro packages and began assembling a chart documenting
the most useful macro commands. In the course of
implementing the design specified by the chart, Steele
says he attracted Stallman's attention.
"He started looking over my shoulder, asking me what I
was doing," recalls Steele.
For Steele, a soft-spoken hacker who interacted with
Stallman infrequently, the memory still sticks out.
Looking over another hacker's shoulder while he worked
was a common activity at the AI Lab. Stallman, the TECO
maintainer at the lab, deemed Steele's work
"interesting" and quickly set off to complete it.
"As I like to say, I did the first 0.001 percent of the
implementation, and Stallman did the rest," says Steele
with a laugh.
The project's new name, Emacs, came courtesy of
Stallman. Short for "editing macros," it signified the
evolutionary transcendence that had taken place during
the macros explosion two years before.
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