Thanks Rainer .. this leaves us with the mystery, who was Tale?!
Dr Rainer Woitok <[email protected]> writes: > Mark, > > On Monday, 2025-09-22 10:45:59 -0700, you wrote: > > > ... > > When we brought VM into git, we integrated several not merged > > branches. This appears to have come from one of these. > > Not quite. In both, the current GitLab and the old Bazaar repositories > the next to oldest changeset dates from 2004-05-02 21:30:26 +0000, is > authored by Robert Widhopf <[email protected]> and has the log message "Ini- > tial Import of VM 7.18". According to file "HISTORY.md" this was the > next to last release from Kyle Jones. In this changeset files "vm-*.el" > are still residing in the toplevel directory rather than in subdirectory > "./lisp/", and checking out this changeset and doing > > $ grep tale vm-reply.el > (defun vm-help-tale () > (error "tale is an idiot, and so are you. :-)")) > (if vm-tale-is-an-idiot > (vm-help-tale)) > $ > > more than twenty-one years later produces strangely familiar output :-) > > Sincerely, > Rainer
