Editing Incremental search (section)

==History==
{{unreferenced section|date=June 2009}}
The first documented use of incremental search was in [[EMACS]] on [[Incompatible Timesharing System|ITS]] in the late 1970s.<ref name="emacs_intro">{{cite web|url=http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AnIntroductionToTheEmacsEditor|title=An Introduction to the Emacs Editor|last=Ciccarelli|first=Eugene|date=January 1978 |work=AI Memo No. 447|access-date=2009-06-16}}</ref> This was one of the many essential Emacs features [[Richard Stallman]] included in his reimplementation, [[GNU Emacs]].  Other noteworthy programs containing this functionality in the 1980s include [[GNU bash|bash]] and [[Canon Cat]].<ref name="shapiro">{{cite journal|last=Shapiro|first=Ezra|year=1989|title=The Cat is Dead, Long Live the Interface|journal=Language Technology Magazine|volume=13}}</ref> These early implementations offered single line feedback, not lists of suggestions.

The first mainstream appearance may have been in the Speller for [[WordPerfect]] 5.2 for Windows, released 30 November 1992.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Markoff |first=John |date=1992-03-30 |title=Wordperfect Executive Is Forced Out |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/30/business/wordperfect-executive-is-forced-out.html |access-date=2023-11-02 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> As programmer Robert John Stevens, now CEO of WriteExpress, watched users at the WordPerfect Usability Lab in Orem, Utah use the 5.1 Speller that he and Steven M. Cannon ported to Windows, he noticed that when a word was not found in the dictionary and no alternative words were presented, users seemed lost, moved the mouse cursor around the page and even exited the Speller. Dumbstruck by the anomaly, he went home, sat on the couch, and discussed his observations with his wife. Stevens coded the solution: as a user typed in the edit box, Speller would suggest words beginning with the letters entered. "You can type in the Replace With box any word you want to find. As you type letters into the box, possible matches are displayed."<ref>{{cite book |title=Using WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows |date=January 1, 1993 |publisher=Que Development Group |isbn=9781565291669 |pages=218}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Using Wordperfect 5.2 for Windows | date=1993 | isbn=978-1-56529-166-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Tn2-Kif3E8C&q=possible%20matches}}</ref>