28 Sep
2021
28 Sep
'21
11:27 a.m.
I found files for my favorite DOS editor on an archive from my OS/2
machine, which replaced my DOS machine in about 1990.
The editor was ETOOL, from Amerisoft.
If anybody wants the files, I'm happy to send them.
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 245248 Mar 8 1988 e/dos/etool.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 1024 Mar 8 1988 e/dos/etool.fig
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 83968 Jul 9 1985 e/dos/etool.hlp
I lost the manual decades ago.
Van Snyder
van.snyder at sbcglobal.net
28 Sep
28 Sep
2:19 p.m.
Editors are like religion once you have a favorite you defend it like crazy.
I discovered the Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility
(Brief), initially sold by Underware? and then Solution Systems, in the
late 80s.? It quickly became my favorite editor.? Eventually Borland
bought it and killed it.
Now I use SlickEdit in Brief emulation mode on Windows and several
versions of Linux.? Slickedit is a great multi emulation, powerful
editor.? I recommend you check it out.
Deep down inside I also have a soft spot for EMACS.
And, BTW, there is a native (not Teco macros) OS/8 version of an EMACS
like editor that can be found here:
https://tangentsoft.com/e8/wiki?name=Home
I have used it extensively on my PiDP-8/I under OS/8 and I intend to use
it on my real, newly acquired, PDP-8/E when I get some mass storage and
I can run OS/8.
On 9/28/2021 1:27 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote:
I found files for my favorite DOS editor on an archive
from my OS/2
machine, which replaced my DOS machine in about 1990.
The editor was ETOOL, from Amerisoft.
If anybody wants the files, I'm happy to send them.
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 245248 Mar 8 1988 e/dos/etool.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 1024 Mar 8 1988 e/dos/etool.fig
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff 83968 Jul 9 1985 e/dos/etool.hlp
I lost the manual decades ago.
Van Snyder
van.snyder at sbcglobal.net
2:29 p.m.
On 9/28/21 2:19 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
Editors are like religion once you have a favorite you
defend it like
crazy.
My lovely wife still uses QEdit under a DOS emulator running on Linux.
I occasionally still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M-80, and then
ported to MS-DOS. The advantage is that it's very small and I can
modify it at will.
--Chuck
3:19 p.m.
On Tue, 2021-09-28 at 14:29 -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 9/28/21 2:19 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
I started using nedit when I switched from OS/2 to Linux. I like it
much better than the ones I used earlier.
As others have notices, all the others do everything wrong.
Editors are like religion once you have a
favorite you defend it
like
crazy.
My lovely wife still uses QEdit under a DOS emulator running on
Linux.
I occasionally still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M-80, and then
ported to MS-DOS.? The advantage is that it's very small and I can
modify it at will.
--Chuck 
30 Sep
30 Sep
8:02 p.m.
Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 9/28/21 2:19 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
I used see.exe early with MS-DOS, that you could record macros with.? I
liked terse.com's 4K footprint.? Much later, I liked QEdit's capability
to move rectangular blocks of text (composed of both rows and columns).?
Then again, when I was required to work across MS-DOS, Windows and
several Unix flavors, I standardized on vi or related clones.? WATCOM C
for MS-DOS or Windows came with a pretty good vi.? There was also
ELVIS.? And, VIM was easy to port across many OSs, including VMS (all my
VMS machines have it).? For the Mac, there is TextWrangler (free version
of BBEdit), with many useful capabilities (such as editing a remote file
via an sftp:// URL, for example).
Carlos.
Editors are like religion once you have a
favorite you defend it like
crazy.
My lovely wife still uses QEdit under a DOS emulator running on Linux.
I occasionally still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M-80, and then
ported to MS-DOS. The advantage is that it's very small and I can
modify it at will.
--Chuck 
1 Oct
1 Oct
4:58 a.m.
On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 05:03, Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
For the Mac, there is TextWrangler (free version
of BBEdit), with many useful capabilities (such as editing a remote file
via an sftp:// URL, for example).
Discontinued some years ago, sadly.
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
6:06 a.m.
On 1 Oct 2021, at 12:58, Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 05:03, Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Yes, and instead they made BBEdit free for the most part. That?s what I?m using. Still got
TextWrangler on the older Macs of course.
--
Adrian Graham
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection?
t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs
w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
For the Mac, there is TextWrangler (free version
of BBEdit), with many useful capabilities (such as editing a remote file
via an sftp:// URL, for example).
Discontinued some years ago, sadly.
6:09 a.m.
I'm using BBEdit (paid version) on my Mac and I really like it. The language plug-ins
are very helpful.
?On 10/1/21, 9:06 AM, "cctalk on behalf of Adrian Graham via cctalk"
<cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 1 Oct 2021, at 12:58, Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 05:03, Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Yes, and instead they made BBEdit free for the most part. That?s what I?m using. Still
got TextWrangler on the older Macs of course.
--
Adrian Graham
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection?
t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs
w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
For the Mac, there is TextWrangler (free version
of BBEdit), with many useful capabilities (such as editing a remote file
via an sftp:// URL, for example).
Discontinued some years ago, sadly.
6:52 a.m.
On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 15:06, Adrian Graham <binarydinosaurs at gmail.com> wrote:
On 1 Oct 2021, at 12:58, Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
True and fair.
I personally have no use for language plugins and so on -- I only need
text editors for plain-text files, not program code.
The thing is that I want and like small, fast, simple editors that
start very quickly and just do text and nothing else. 90% of the time
I don't want colour-coding or syntax highlighting or any of that. I
just want something that loads too fast to see and has the standard UI
with CUA menus and so on so I can do what I have to do and get out,
ASAP.
Which is where a lot of widely-admired editors fall down. Atom, VSCode
etc are vast lumbering things. Anything written in Javascript made
into a standalone app inevitably becomes Howl's Moving Castle, to echo
Steve Yegge's observation:
?
Scheme is an exotic sports car. Fast. Manual transmission. No radio.
Emacs Lisp is a 1984 Subaru GL 4WD: "the car that's always in front of
you."
Common Lisp is Howl's Moving Castle.
?
TextWrangler was much smaller than BBEdit so it won for me. Once it
wasn't an option, well, BBEdit lost out.
I found a tiny thing called "TextEd". It's like macOS Text Edit but
much smaller and faster because it doesn't support formatting or RTF
or anything. I can post a link later; I'm on a different machine right
now.
Vi, Joe, Nano, Pico etc also fail this, because of their weird UIs and
because they're shell-based and frankly if I'm in a GUI I want a GUI
app. Tilde is my preferred console Linux editor now, but sadly, it
doesn't work with things like the Git commit command -- no template is
inserted. So I have my default set to mcedit, which is still a bit
weird but at least only a bit.
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Discontinued some years ago, sadly.
Yes, and instead they made BBEdit free for the most part. That?s what I?m using. Still
got TextWrangler on the older Macs of course. 
28 Sep
28 Sep
2:29 p.m.
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
Editors are like religion once you have a favorite you
defend it like crazy.
"Baby Duck Syndrome": you bond to the first one. Any time you are tempted
to switch, everything that any other one does differently is "just all
wrong". If you are eventually compelled to switch, you will bond to a new
one; and every other one "just does it all wrong".
I was compelled to switch many times, and had to learn severaal different
one. They ALL "do it all wrong".
I did my PhD written exams on Windows Write. I was the first person in
SLIS (UCBerkeley "School of Library and Information Studies") to do them
on a computer - "Unless you want to admit that you grade on penmanship."
'course, then there are the MAJOR religious battles. Such as VI VS EMACS.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:44 p.m.
'course, then there are the MAJOR religious
battles. Such as VI VS EMACS.
"I've been using vi for about two years, mostly because I can't figure out
how to exit it."
(written in vi)
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Faith is to be sure of what you hope for. -- The Kry, "Take My Hand" -------
3:12 p.m.
To Exit EMACS:? Control-X Control-C?
On 9/28/2021 5:02 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:
On 9/28/2021 2:48 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Or having to power cycle the machine to get out of EMACS.
thanks
Jim
"I've been using vi for about two years,
mostly because I can't
figure out
how to exit it."
:q
you're welcome
3:41 p.m.
>>> "I've been using vi for about two
years, mostly because I can't
>>> figure out how to exit it."
>> :q
>> you're welcome
> Or having to power cycle the machine to get out of EMACS.
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021,
Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
To Exit EMACS:?? Control-X Control-C????
I once saw a car with a vanity plate: CTRL K D
(Wordstar for save and exit)
Can EMACS be expanded enough to emulate VI?
Can VI be expanded enough to emulate EMACS?
About 3 decades ago, there was some linguistic analysis of effects on
writing style with some editors.
There were some very simplistic conclusions, such as that small screen
(number of characters/lines, NOT square footage) produced choppier
writing, with more repetitions, due to not seeing both paragraphs at the
same time.
It really should be studied in depth, including expanding the algorithms
of Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Coleman-Liau, ARI, Linser Write Formula,
phrase repetition analysis, etc.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3:49 p.m.
On 9/28/21 3:41 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
Yes.? There is an elisp package called EVIL (Extensible VI Layer) that
emulates VI in EMACS.
Since EMACS has a full programming language (elisp), you can write
anything you want in it (mail readers, browsers, calendar apps, other
editors, etc).? I've written a few things in elisp to mainly deal with
global changes that were more complicated than I could figure out with a
SED script.
>>>
"I've been using vi for about two years, mostly because I can't
>>> figure out how to exit it."
>> :q
>> you're welcome
> Or having to power cycle the machine to get out of EMACS.
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021,
Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
To Exit EMACS:? Control-X Control-C?
Can EMACS be expanded enough to emulate VI? Can VI be expanded enough to emulate EMACS?
No
idea.
--
TTFN - Guy
4:36 p.m.
On 9/28/21 3:49 PM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
Yes.? There is an elisp package called EVIL
(Extensible VI Layer) that
emulates VI in EMACS.
I confess to having Wordstar so thoroughly burned into my reflexes that
I still use joe under linux.
Let's not forget MINCE, either. Ran on 8-bit x80 systems, emacs subset
with a nested acronym of a name.
--Chuck
4:46 p.m.
Control-C, Control-X & Control-P for copy, cut and paste in Windows 11
dates back to Wordstar on 8-Bit CPM systems in the 80s.
On 9/28/2021 6:36 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 9/28/21 3:49 PM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
Yes.? There is an elisp package called EVIL
(Extensible VI Layer) that
emulates VI in EMACS.
I confess to having Wordstar so thoroughly burned into my reflexes that
I still use joe under linux.
Let's not forget MINCE, either. Ran on 8-bit x80 systems, emacs subset
with a nested acronym of a name.
--Chuck
5:16 p.m.
On 9/28/21 4:46 PM, Mike Katz wrote:
Control-C, Control-X & Control-P for copy, cut and
paste in Windows 11
dates back to Wordstar on 8-Bit CPM systems in the 80s.
Are you certain about that?
Ctrl-C = Page down
Ctrl-X = Line down
Ctrl-P = not on WS
One way to remember this is to look at the keyboard and visualize a
"diamond" of keys; center is S and D for character left and right,
Below is X for line down, above is E for line up.
Similarly, next to X you have C, for page down, Next to E is R, for page up.
And so on...
--Chuck
5:30 p.m.
You are correct, in WordStar I was Control-K + C for copy, Control-K + V
for move block.? In Windows it's Control-C for copy and Control-V for
paste.
I was wrong about control P, that is print in windows.
Sorry, my memory is going.
In my defense its still C for copy and V for paste in both.
On 9/28/2021 7:16 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 9/28/21 4:46 PM, Mike Katz wrote:
Control-C, Control-X & Control-P for copy,
cut and paste in Windows 11
dates back to Wordstar on 8-Bit CPM systems in the 80s.
Are you certain about
that?
Ctrl-C = Page down
Ctrl-X = Line down
Ctrl-P = not on WS
One way to remember this is to look at the keyboard and visualize a
"diamond" of keys; center is S and D for character left and right,
Below is X for line down, above is E for line up.
Similarly, next to X you have C, for page down, Next to E is R, for page up.
And so on...
--Chuck
29 Sep
29 Sep
9:27 a.m.
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 01:47, Mike Katz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Control-C, Control-X & Control-P for copy, cut and paste in Windows 11
dates back to Wordstar on 8-Bit CPM systems in the 80s.
No they didn't. They came from the Mac:
https://ieee-isto.org/isto-blog/standards-for-cut-copy-and-past/
The Windows standard _was_ Shift-Del to cut, Ctrl-Ins to cut,
Shift-Ins to paste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste#Cut_and_paste
Nobody could remember it, including CUA evangelist me -- I had to look
that up -- so they switched to PC-ified Mac standard.
TBH I can't remember when; I am not sure but it might have been in
Windows 3.0, the first release after the divorce from IBM.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702-829-053
9:21 a.m.
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 01:37, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I confess to having Wordstar so thoroughly burned into my reflexes
It was once, yes. I got better.
But now:
http://wordtsar.ca/
that
I still use joe under linux.
Tilde FTW.
https://os.ghalkes.nl/tilde
Let's not forget MINCE, either. Ran on 8-bit x80
systems, emacs subset
with a nested acronym of a name.
Ultimately became Borland Sprint!
http://www.sci.wsu.edu/math/faculty/barnes/borland/sprint.htm
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702-829-053
28 Sep
28 Sep
6:13 p.m.
On Tue, 2021-09-28 at 15:49 -0700, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
Since EMACS has a full programming language (elisp),
you can write
anything you want in it (mail readers, browsers, calendar apps, other
editors, etc)
Years ago, one of my colleagues showed me a pocket reference card
jesting about "hello world."
At the end of the description of "GNU hello" was a remark "and like any
self-respecting program, it has a built-in mail reader."
8:37 p.m.
For those of you who wrote your own editors. How did you display special
ASCII characters? Years ago, In highschool I tried writing a hex editor (in
qbasic so this may have been the problem) but when display anything that
had a function like chr 07 it would activate instead of display. I gave up
since I couldn't figure it out other than writing directly to video memory.
On Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 8:13 PM Van Snyder via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Tue, 2021-09-28 at 15:49 -0700, Guy Sotomayor via
cctalk wrote:
Since EMACS has a full programming language
(elisp), you can write
anything you want in it (mail readers, browsers, calendar apps, other
editors, etc)
Years ago, one of my colleagues showed me a pocket reference card
jesting about "hello world."
At the end of the description of "GNU hello" was a remark "and like any
self-respecting program, it has a built-in mail reader."
8:58 p.m.
On 9/28/21 8:37 PM, John Herron via cctalk wrote:
For those of you who wrote your own editors. How did
you display special
ASCII characters? Years ago, In highschool I tried writing a hex editor (in
qbasic so this may have been the problem) but when display anything that
had a function like chr 07 it would activate instead of display. I gave up
since I couldn't figure it out other than writing directly to video memory.
On Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 8:13 PM Van Snyder via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> On Tue, 2021-09-28 at 15:49 -0700, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
>> Since EMACS has a full programming language (elisp), you can write
>> anything you want in it (mail readers, browsers, calendar apps, other
>> editors, etc)
>
> Years ago, one of my colleagues showed me a pocket reference card
> jesting about "hello world."
>
> At the end of the description of "GNU hello" was a remark "and like
any
> self-respecting program, it has a built-in mail reader."
Mine was in assembly and Ctrol-V signified a literal character, no
matter what it was. Wordstar has a similar feature, IIRC.
Of course, all of the I/O string handling was count+data, not "delimeted
by null", so that made it easier.
--Chuck
9:07 p.m.
I spent years working in field service, and this was a conversation I had
multiple times per day...
Me: Silently types 'vi <blah>' or 'edlin <blah>' depending on
the platform
Client: Wow you still use <insert name here> - You should use Qedit12005b
its the best!
me: But the next client I visit won't have Qedit12005b, so I would have
to install it.
Client: .........
Got monotonous after a bit.
Kindest regards,
Doug Jackson
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 13:58, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 9/28/21 8:37 PM, John Herron via cctalk wrote:
For those of you who wrote your own editors. How
did you display special
ASCII characters? Years ago, In highschool I tried writing a hex editor
(in
qbasic so this may have been the problem) but
when display anything that
had a function like chr 07 it would activate instead of display. I gave
up
since I couldn't figure it out other than
writing directly to video
memory.
On Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 8:13 PM Van Snyder via cctalk <
cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> On Tue, 2021-09-28 at 15:49 -0700, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
>> Since EMACS has a full programming language (elisp), you can write
>> anything you want in it (mail readers, browsers, calendar apps, other
>> editors, etc)
>
> Years ago, one of my colleagues showed me a pocket reference card
> jesting about "hello world."
>
> At the end of the description of "GNU hello" was a remark "and like
any
> self-respecting program, it has a built-in mail reader."
Mine was in assembly and Ctrol-V signified a literal character, no
matter what it was. Wordstar has a similar feature, IIRC.
Of course, all of the I/O string handling was count+data, not "delimeted
by null", so that made it easier.
--Chuck
9:52 p.m.
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021, John Herron via cctalk wrote:
For those of you who wrote your own editors. How did
you display special
ASCII characters? Years ago, In highschool I tried writing a hex editor (in
qbasic so this may have been the problem) but when display anything that
had a function like chr 07 it would activate instead of display. I gave up
since I couldn't figure it out other than writing directly to video memory.
Writing to the video memory was the simplest and most straightforward way
to do it, and get around QBASIC, DOS, or BIOS calls that "understand" that
character 7 is BELL.
REP MOVSW let you copy back and forth between your own buffer and the
screen memory in a decent amount of time.
I had stopped using BASIC by the time that QBASIC came out, but in BASIC,
BASICA, GWBASIC (It was once "Gee Whiz BASIC", but Microsoft claims that
they don't remember what "GW" stood for!), you can DEF SEG and then POKE
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
29 Sep
29 Sep
9:28 a.m.
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 06:53, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Writing to the video memory was the simplest and most straightforward way
to do it
"*Real* programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand."
https://xkcd.com/378/
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702-829-053
9:19 a.m.
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 00:41, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Can EMACS be expanded enough to emulate VI?
https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/emacs-evil-mode/
Can VI be expanded enough to emulate EMACS?
https://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=300
There's something almost poetic in their mutual love-hate
relationship. Yin and yang. :-D
About 3 decades ago, there was some linguistic
analysis of effects on
writing style with some editors.
There were some very simplistic conclusions, such as that small screen
(number of characters/lines, NOT square footage) produced choppier
writing, with more repetitions, due to not seeing both paragraphs at the
same time.
It really should be studied in depth, including expanding the algorithms
of Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Coleman-Liau, ARI, Linser Write Formula,
phrase repetition analysis, etc.
Nifty idea!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702-829-053
28 Sep
28 Sep
3:13 p.m.
On 9/28/21 3:02 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:
On 9/28/2021 2:48 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Or having to power cycle the machine to get out of EMACS.
Why would you ever want to get out of EMACS?? ;-)
Editors I've used:
* SOS (Son-Of-Stopgap) on TOPS-10
* TECO-10 on TOPS-10
* XEDIT on VM/370
* EMACS
I only use VI if I absolutely must and always have issues with the modality.
--
TTFN - Guy
"I've been using vi for about two years,
mostly because I can't
figure out
how to exit it."
:q
you're welcome
3:16 p.m.
On 28 Sep 2021, at 23:13, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 9/28/21 3:02 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:
For some reason it?s embedded in my cranium that to exit TECO it?s CTRL-C
<ESC><ESC>. No idea why I remember that since I?ve not used TECO since the
80s, and only then out of curiosity.
--
Adrian Graham
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection?
t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs
w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
On 9/28/2021 2:48 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Or having to power cycle the machine to get out of EMACS.
Why would you ever want to get out of EMACS? ;-) "I've been using vi for about two years,
mostly because I can't figure out
how to exit it."
:q
you're welcome
3:15 p.m.
"I've been using vi for about two years,
mostly because I can't
figure out how to exit it."
:q
you're welcome 
29 Sep
29 Sep
2:37 a.m.
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
No, no... you're doing it all wrong ... it's ZZ
See . :q is colon q enter, so 3 buttons. ZZ is jsut 2 buttons (shift
doesn't count and z is close to shift anyway, so one hand)
....
And thus holy wars even exist inside the vi/vim vs emacs 'war' ...
I use vim daily - minimal features, barley more than what vi can do. I'm
using alpine email, so mostly a nano-like editor here althogh sometimes I
drop into vim to do some formatting, etc. which I find easier in vim. My
own editor is nano-like (I have C and BCPL versions) but often feel that I
want some vi style global commands, so one day it might morph into
something like that.
And some 30 ish years back I was helping to "bring-up" a new unix-like
system and they wanted emacs - I managed to port microEmacs to it at the
time, but to do that I wanted a vi for myself, so ported "stvie" then used
that to help with the port of ?Emacs but that's as close as I got to
emacs...
Brand loyalty and all that...
Gordon
"I've
been using vi for about two years, mostly because I can't figure out
how to exit it."
:q
you're welcome
28 Sep
28 Sep
2:56 p.m.
Hold down the shift key and press the letter Z twice?.
You're free, you're free and freedom tastes like reality...
On 9/28/2021 4:44 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:
'course,
then there are the MAJOR religious battles. Such as VI VS EMACS.
"I've
been using vi for about two years, mostly because I can't figure out
how to exit it."
(written in vi)
3:06 p.m.
On 9/28/2021 4:44 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:
I try to stay out of the VI/Emacs war, but I do use VI on all my
devices.? I had a portable DOS, OS/2, Win16 console, Win32Console, Linux
set of floppies I could easily pop in to have VI on any machine I needed
to work on/with.
It was less of affinity for the specific editor as it was just a need
for some consistency so I could focus attention on other things.
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com
'course,
then there are the MAJOR religious battles. Such as VI VS EMACS.
"I've
been using vi for about two years, mostly because I can't figure out
how to exit it."
(written in vi)
2:55 p.m.
Fred Cisin said "'course, then there are the MAJOR religious battles.?
Such as VI VS EMACS."
I cannot agree more.? I know many people who live in VI thought I cannot
fathom why.? My first screen based editor (as opposed to a text editor),
in 1980, was John F. Wakerly's Programma Improved Editor (Pie) for the
Flex Operating System on a Gimix 6809 system.
It was not a modal editor, the cursor keys and editing keys were active
all the time.? So I never got used to or understood an editor where you
had to change modes to either type or move the cursor (like VI).
Tongue in cheek here "Vi is just a semi visual front end hacked on the
Unix line oriented text editor Ed".? Please don't flame me or start a
war with me for saying that.? But it is true.
29 Sep
29 Sep
9:16 a.m.
On Tue, 28 Sept 2021 at 23:55, Mike Katz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Fred Cisin said "'course, then there are the MAJOR religious battles.
Such as VI VS EMACS."
I cannot agree more. I know many people who live in VI thought I cannot
fathom why.
I worked at Red Hat briefly and SUSE for more than anywhere else in my
career. I know Vi fans in their 20s, people born well after I first
used it and disliked it on SCO Xenix.
I didn't fall in love with my first editor (probably the full-screen
BASIC editor on the Commodore PET), or with Sinclair BASIC's (which
was pretty horrible but Beta BASIC made it better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_BASIC
)
And the SAM Coup?'s BASIC -- written by the same chap -- was much more
pleasant as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coup%C3%A9
But really nothing to love. Then I learned VAX/VMS at Uni and I didn't
love EDT, although later I learned Edlin on DOS in my first job, and
that made me miss EDT very badly.
I think it was probably only when DR-DOS and MS-DOS 5+ included decent
full-screen CUA editors that I actually found ones I _liked_ using.
Which is why I want to properly CUA-ify Emacs -- and *no* cua-mode is
_not_ an acceptable answer -- but dear hypothetical deities, the
resistance from the Emacs fans... yeesh.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702-829-053
11:25 a.m.
On 2021-09-29 10:16 a.m., Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
But really nothing to love. Then I learned VAX/VMS at
Uni and I didn't
love EDT, although later I learned Edlin on DOS in my first job, and
that made me miss EDT very badly.
I think it was probably only when DR-DOS and MS-DOS 5+ included decent
full-screen CUA editors that I actually found ones I _liked_ using.
Which is why I want to properly CUA-ify Emacs -- and *no* cua-mode is
_not_ an acceptable answer -- but dear hypothetical deities, the
resistance from the Emacs fans... yeesh.
I like TERSE for dos. A 4096 byte sized editor for DOS.
64Kb files only, but good for editing from a floppy
when we had them. Still can be found on the web.
Ben.
12:10 p.m.
On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 20:25, ben via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I like TERSE for dos. A 4096 byte sized editor for
DOS.
64Kb files only, but good for editing from a floppy
when we had them. Still can be found on the web.
Ben.
That is really quite impressive!
https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Terse
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
10:22 p.m.
On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 5:30 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
"Baby Duck Syndrome": you bond to the first
one. Any time you are tempted
to switch, everything that any other one does differently is "just all
wrong". If you are eventually compelled to switch, you will bond to a new
one; and every other one "just does it all wrong".
'course, then there are the MAJOR religious battles. Such as VI VS EMACS.
I started on 8-bitters. On minis, I first encountered EDT (on VMS),
then Emacs (on UNIX, AmigaDOS, and even VMS), then years later when I
was working for Lucent/Bell Labs, vi...
I'm all kinds of messed up, but mostly I use vi(m) these days. It's
not perfect (oh, buy, it's not perfect!) but I can have the same
experience going from platform to platform to platform. That's worth
it.
-ethan
11:29 p.m.
On 9/29/21 10:22 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
I started on 8-bitters. On minis, I first encountered EDT (on VMS),
then Emacs (on UNIX, AmigaDOS, and even VMS), then years later when I
was working for Lucent/Bell Labs, vi...
Okay, story time. Back in the early-mid 1970s, I found myself on the
CDC STAR-100 project software being run out of Sunnyvale. While we had
two 1/100th speed emulators on-site, the Real Thing was back in Arden
Hills at the end of a 9600 bps leased line, multiplexed locally to
several 1200 bps async lines. (Remember the Bell 209 modem?).
A WYSIWYG editor was out of the question at 1200 bps and fairly
primitive CRT terminals, a line editor was the choice. The one supplied
with the system software was terrible and awkward, so I decided to
bootleg a better one.
For those of you who don't know the old iron, the STAR-100/(later CYBER
200) was a big (physically large) vector machine with virtual memory and
a huge instruction set. Its fatal weak point was that scalars were
treated as vectors of length 1, and so created bubbles in the two vector
unit pipelines.
But golly, with a 48 bit addressing space, vector lengths up to 65K
elements, all sorts of fancy bitmapped control vectors, and the ability
to map an entire file into an address range (leave the I/O to the
pager), the thing was begging for some experimentation.
So I threw together a line-oriented editor using mostly vector and
string instructions and called it OGNATE (for Oh god not another text
editor). It only took a couple of days of scribbling.
I revisited the big vector scene a decade later after a detour into the
micro world, when CDC spun off ETA systems to produce a liquid
nitrogen-cooled version, initially called the GF-10, later the ETA-10.
On the west coast, we were doing our initial development on a VAX
11/750, but at some point I asked the folks back in St. Paul what they
were using for an editor. OGNATE! I was dumbfounded--you see, the
ETA-10 has many fewer instructions than the STAR-100 did, among the
missing were some of the more esoteric ones used in OGNATE. Someone had
painstakingly coded emulations for each of those instructions.
Ah, memories...
--Chuck
30 Sep
30 Sep
1:15 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Sept 2021 at 08:29, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On the west coast, we were doing our initial
development on a VAX
11/750, but at some point I asked the folks back in St. Paul what they
were using for an editor. OGNATE! I was dumbfounded--you see, the
ETA-10 has many fewer instructions than the STAR-100 did, among the
missing were some of the more esoteric ones used in OGNATE. Someone had
painstakingly coded emulations for each of those instructions.
That's pretty impressive!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
28 Sep
28 Sep
2:30 p.m.
Van,Is this for the manual I picked up from you? It was red three ring binder deal.-Ali
-------- Original message --------From: Van Snyder via cctech <cctech at
classiccmp.org> Date: 9/28/21 1:07 PM (GMT-08:00) To: cctech at classiccmp.org
Subject: Found my favorite DOS editor I found files for my favorite DOS editor on an
archive from my OS/2machine, which replaced my DOS machine in about 1990.The editor was
ETOOL, from Amerisoft.If anybody wants the files, I'm happy to send them.-rw-r--r-- 1
vsnyder staff 245248 Mar? 8? 1988 e/dos/etool.exe-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff?? 1024 Mar? 8?
1988 e/dos/etool.fig-rw-r--r-- 1 vsnyder staff? 83968 Jul? 9? 1985 e/dos/etool.hlpI lost
the manual decades ago.Van Snydervan.snyder at sbcglobal.net
1 Oct
1 Oct
4:02 p.m.
In the late eighties I used to use E, an editor developed internally at IBM. My dad had
retired from there by then but got it from
ex-colleagues. I see you can get it from here now
https://winworldpc.com/product/ibm-e-editor/3x
Already mentioned is Brief, I still have the light green box on the shelf. This was ultra
customisable but like many, just used it as-is.
A super compact and snappy editor was the one built into Turbo Pascal. IIRC it used
WordStar bindings. It was so compact on CP/M that I
kept the whole integrated editor/Pascal compiler on my 8" floppies just for editing
my COBOL assignments, later on using the DOS version
in Turbo C / C++.
I also used WordStar on those OSs and I'm sure lots of you will fondly remember the
LIST viewer by Vernon Buerg. I loved that program.
2 Oct
2 Oct
3:53 a.m.
New subject: eBay Carterfone I/O Selectric (not mine)
Just a heads up on a Carterfone rebadged I/O Selectric terminal on eBay (not mine).
#294429449623. It passed in earlier, now
relisted lower BIN. I'm surprised no-one grabbed it the first time as it seems very
reasonable for someone stateside. Its
postage to Oz jumped from 400 USD to 500 USD when relisted which may be due to US Post not
sending to Oz and other countries
at the moment, so if it wasn't coming here the first time, it's now even less
likely :)
Seems it would go nicely with those 987 APL typeballs someone picked up earlier.
5:12 a.m.
New subject: eBay Carterfone I/O Selectric (not mine)
Actually it did sell...... $200.00
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294429449623
Unfortunately anything Selectric must be packed carefully as it can be easily damaged in
shipping. I have read many horror stories on the Typewriters user group of this
happening.
Don Resor
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Steve Malikoff via
cctalk
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2021 3:54 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: eBay Carterfone I/O Selectric (not mine)
Just a heads up on a Carterfone rebadged I/O Selectric terminal on eBay (not mine).
#294429449623. It passed in earlier, now relisted lower BIN. I'm surprised no-one
grabbed it the first time as it seems very reasonable for someone stateside. Its postage
to Oz jumped from 400 USD to 500 USD when relisted which may be due to US Post not sending
to Oz and other countries at the moment, so if it wasn't coming here the first time,
it's now even less likely :) Seems it would go nicely with those 987 APL typeballs
someone picked up earlier.
8:31 a.m.
I used pmate in my early DOS years (1982-83) eventually switching back to
vi when it was available. That might have been the MKS (Mortice Kern
Systems) version.
I have a copy of pmate but its two or three files are tangled up on a disk
image with some unrelated .com files. When I can sort them out and find the
cheat sheet, I'll make them available.
On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 2:46 AM Steve Malikoff via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
In the late eighties I used to use E, an editor
developed internally at
IBM. My dad had retired from there by then but got it from
ex-colleagues. I see you can get it from here now
https://winworldpc.com/product/ibm-e-editor/3x
Already mentioned is Brief, I still have the light green box on the shelf.
This was ultra customisable but like many, just used it as-is.
A super compact and snappy editor was the one built into Turbo Pascal.
IIRC it used WordStar bindings. It was so compact on CP/M that I
kept the whole integrated editor/Pascal compiler on my 8" floppies just
for editing my COBOL assignments, later on using the DOS version
in Turbo C / C++.
I also used WordStar on those OSs and I'm sure lots of you will fondly
remember the LIST viewer by Vernon Buerg. I loved that program.
3 Oct
3 Oct
1:58 p.m.
On Sat, 2 Oct 2021 at 08:46, Steve Malikoff via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
In the late eighties I used to use E, an editor developed internally at IBM. My dad had
retired from there by then but got it from
ex-colleagues. I see you can get it from here now
https://winworldpc.com/product/ibm-e-editor/3x
FWIW, it's part of PC-DOS 7, 2000 (7.01) and 7.1.
7.1 is a free download from IBM as part of the ServerGuide Scripting
Toolkit. It's only the kernel and a few utilities, though. You need
the rest of PC-DOS 2000, but that was bundled with VirtualPC which
Microsoft bought and have made a free download.
I've blogged about how to assemble your own copy, and point to some
VirtualBox pre-installed disk images.
https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/59703.html
I also used WordStar on those OSs and I'm sure
lots of you will fondly remember the LIST viewer by Vernon Buerg. I loved that program.
Oh my yes! I was a regular user of LIST in my OS/2 days. I had
forgotten all about it!
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
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