The more I like my VAX, the more I hate Compaq... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

8 Jun 2000

...
  EDT *is* a line editor, until you (or your init file)
type 
 CHANGE that is. I count four different editors hiding inside EDT:

 1. Original non-keypad change mode (from EDT V1), annoying modal thing
    like "vi" but of course totally different (SET CHANGE NOKEYPAD gets you
    this IIRC).
 2. Line mode, when you haven't typed CHANGE yet.
 3. CHANGE mode on a VT100 etc. (what we're all used to)
 4. CHANGE mode on a hardcopy terminal.  Bizarre!

 Are there more?

 but the best thing to do
with SOS (other than not use it) is pretend it's the old Micro$oft BASIC
line editor. At least, that's how _I_ learned to use it, having come from
the TRS-80 Model I and found myself dropped on a VAX.  
 Boy it's been a while, I remember thinking SOS was very much 
 like the TRS-80 Model II EDTASM.  Close enough! 
Other way around; SOS was first (on DEC-10). I got so accustomed to it
that I copied Alan Miller's 8080 version into an extension of the old
Processor Technology Software #1 (also known as SCS- Self Contained System),
and later implemented it in PL/1 as part of a custom command environment
for the primos operating system at revisions 17 and 18 (Prime later
added its own command-line editing).

I have the 8080 code for what I called 'SCSNEW' (it has a ram-based 
file system, cassette I/O, hooks into SOLOS for P-Tech SOL owners),
code to drive an IMSAI UCRI tape board, debugger, and god-knows-what
else I dumped into it and forgot about.

The source was set up for Intel's Mac80 cross-assembler. You'd need
to make a few changes to it for other assemblers.

If anyone's interested in it, let me know...  -doug q