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From: ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
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Subject: Re: Recent history of vi (was: Re: Python/C/Pascal ... How To Choose ?)
Date: 15 Nov 2025 18:48:51 GMT
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In article <mnrrp4FnjgqU1@mid.individual.net>,
rbowman  <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Nov 2025 09:59:39 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:
>
>> On 2025-11-15, rbowman wrote:
>> 
>>> On Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:09:47 -0500, c186282 wrote:
>>>
>>>>    WordStar and close variants were VERY popular back in the day. Kind
>>>>    of everyone's "first word processor".
>>>>    Everyone used it alongside Lotus-123.
>>>
>>> It was bundled on the Osborne 1 CP/M machine. I got a lot of miles out
>>> of it as a programming editor in the text mode. When I finally moved to
>>> the DOS world I bought Brief.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brief_(text_editor)
>>>
>>> 'ed' wasn't much fun. I think I way have had a freeware clone of vi
>>> that was no Joy either. I guessing 95% of the people who say 'I use vi'
>>> never have. Most Linux distros bring up Vim if you type 'vi'. One
>>> exception is Arch. 'vi' is a hard link to ex which comes up in the
>>> visual mode for that old timey flavor.
>> 
>> IIRC that source was lost or elusive for a long time, or perhaps held
>> back by lack of permission to distribute?
>
>Like Unix itself ed and vi had licensing problems.
>
>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/02/01/24/0146248/caldera-releases-
>original-unices-under-bsd-license
>
>Somehow at least the legacy vi code escaped the AT&T, UNIX System 
>Laboratories, Novel, Caldera, SCO mess.
>
>Stevie was a clone of vi and Vim followed on Stevie. Doing a clean room 
>implementation of vi wasn't difficult. Today somebody would probably try 
>to patent ':w' as a unique key combination. It should be an object less 
>that the companies that spent more time in legal wrangles than product 
>development are footnotes in computer folklore.
>
>
>
>

I find it takes a lot of munging to get vim to *really* work like vi.
The one on FreeBSD which I think is technically "nex" is much closer
out of the box.
-- 
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..