On 12/11/2014 03:38 PM, Mark Wickens wrote:
  Ideally I'd like to implement a clean, logical
design without many 'bells
 and whistles' concentrating on the core functionality. 
Wordstar.  Still in use in many places.  On 64-bit Linux, I use the Joe
editor, which is a pretty close clone.  I think the source is freely
available--and there are versions available for MS-DOS and Windows.
--Chuck