1.1 Through Version 18

Although the history of the early versions of GNU Emacs is unclear, the history is well-known from the middle of 1985. A time line is:

• GNU Emacs version 13 (the first public release we know of) was released on March 20, 1985.
• GNU Emacs version 15 (15.34) was released on May 7, 1985 and shared some code with a version of Emacs written by James Gosling (the same James Gosling who later created the Java language).
• GNU Emacs version 16 (first released version was 16.56) was released on July 15, 1985. All Gosling code was removed due to potential copyright problems with the code.
• version 16.57: released on September 16, 1985.
• versions 16.58, 16.59: released on September 17, 1985.
• version 16.60: released on September 19, 1985. These later version 16’s incorporated patches from the net, esp. for getting Emacs to work under System V.
• version 17.36 (first official v17 release) released on December 20, 1985. Included a TeX-able user manual. First official unpatched version that worked on vanilla System V machines.
• version 17.43 (second official v17 release) released on January 25, 1986.
• version 17.45 released on January 30, 1986.
• version 17.46 released on February 4, 1986.
• version 17.48 released on February 10, 1986.
• version 17.49 released on February 12, 1986.
• version 17.55 released on March 18, 1986.
• version 17.57 released on March 27, 1986.
• version 17.58 released on April 4, 1986.
• version 17.61 released on April 12, 1986.
• version 17.63 released on May 7, 1986.
• version 17.64 released on May 12, 1986.
• version 18.24 (a beta version) released on October 2, 1986.
• version 18.30 (a beta version) released on November 15, 1986.
• version 18.31 (a beta version) released on November 23, 1986.
• version 18.32 (a beta version) released on December 7, 1986.
• version 18.33 (a beta version) released on December 12, 1986.
• version 18.35 (a beta version) released on January 5, 1987.
• version 18.36 (a beta version) released on January 21, 1987.
• January 27, 1987: The Great Usenet Renaming. net.emacs is now comp.emacs.
• version 18.37 (a beta version) released on February 12, 1987.
• version 18.38 (a beta version) released on March 3, 1987.
• version 18.39 (a beta version) released on March 14, 1987.
• version 18.40 (a beta version) released on March 18, 1987.
• version 18.41 (the first “official” release) released on March 22, 1987.
• version 18.45 released on June 2, 1987.
• version 18.46 released on June 9, 1987.
• version 18.47 released on June 18, 1987.
• version 18.48 released on September 3, 1987.
• version 18.49 released on September 18, 1987.
• version 18.50 released on February 13, 1988.
• version 18.51 released on May 7, 1988.
• version 18.52 released on September 1, 1988.
• version 18.53 released on February 24, 1989.
• version 18.54 released on April 26, 1989.
• version 18.55 released on August 23, 1989. This is the earliest version that is still available by FTP.
• version 18.56 released on January 17, 1991.
• version 18.57 released late January, 1991.
• version 18.58 released ?????.
• version 18.59 released October 31, 1992.