In 1979, Honeywell Information Systems announced a new programming language for their time-sharing service named TEX, an acronym for the Text Executive processor. TEX was a first generation scr ipting language, developed around the time of AWK and used by Honeywell initially as an in-house system test automation tool.



TEX extended the Honeywell Time-Sharing service (TSS) line editor with programmable capabilities which allowed the user greater latitude in developing ease-of-use editing extensions as well as write scr ipts to automate many other time-sharing tasks formerly done by more complex TSS FORTRAN programs.