GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.  12-December-1985
Copyright (C) 1985 Richard M. Stallman.
See the end for copying conditions.

Changes in Emacs 17

* Frustrated?

Try M-x doctor.

* Bored?

Try M-x hanoi.

* Brain-damaged?

Try M-x yow.

* Sun3, Tahoe, Apollo, HP9000s300, Stride and Nu machines supported.

The Tahoe uses 4.2; Emacs on that machine is just as on all others.
In regard to the Apollo, see the file APOLLO in this directory.
HP9000s300, Stride and Nu run forms of System V.

* System V Unix supported, including subprocesses.

It should be possible now to bring up Emacs on a machine running
mere unameliorated system V Unix with no major work; just possible bug
fixes.  But you can expect to find a handful of those on any machine
that Emacs has not been run on before.

* Berkeley 4.1 Unix supported -- perhaps.

There are now conditionals in Emacs for this system.  The changes
came from someone who ran Emacs on a 4.1 system, but I have had
to change them since, so they will need fixing up.


* Portable `alloca' provided.

Emacs can now run on machines that do not and cannot support the library
subroutine `alloca' in the canonical fashion, using an `alloca' emulation
written in C.

* On-line manual.

Info now contains an Emacs manual, with essentially the same text
as in the printed manual.

The manual can now be printed with a standard TeX.

Nicely typeset and printed copies of the manual will be available
from the Free Software Foundation.

* Backup file version numbers.

Emacs now supports version numbers in backup files.

The first time you save a particular file in one editing session,
the old file is copied or renamed to serve as a backup file.
In the past, the name for the backup file was made by appending `~'
to the end of the original file name.

Now the backup file name can instead be made by appending ".~NN~" to
the original file name, where NN stands for a numeric version.  Each
time this is done, the new version number is one higher than the
highest previously used.

Thus, the active, current file does not have a version number.
Only the backups have them.

This feature is controlled by the variable `version-control'.  If it
is `nil', as normally, then numbered backups are made only for files
that already have numbered backups.  Backup names with just `~' are
used for files that have no numbered backups.

If `version-control' is `never', then the backup file's name is
made with just `~' in any case.

If `version-control' is not `nil' or `never', numbered backups are
made unconditionally.

To prevent unlimited consumption of disk space, Emacs can delete
old backup versions automatically.  Generally Emacs keeps the first
few backups and the latest few backups, deleting any in between.
This happens every time a new backup is made.  The two variables that
control the deletion are `kept-old-versions' and `kept-new-versions'.
Their values are, respectively, the number of oldest backups to keep
and the number of newest ones to keep, each time a new backup is made.
The value of `kept-new-versions' includes the backup just created.
By default, both values are 2.

If `trim-versions-without-asking' is non-`nil', the excess middle versions
are deleted with