Rand Editor

[Joseph S. D. Yao]

> Posted from  cottrell at nbs-vms.ARPA
> > VI is much more capable than RE. The keys all have mnemonic names,
> > d for delete, w for word, i for insert, etc. I don't know how the
> > keystrokes for RE were developed. RE is simple to learn tho.
> 
> I dunno about the Rand Editor, but vi is just about the most terminal
> independent screen editor I've ever used.  ...

Dave, if you're reading this, here's your religious issue again.

Ever since somebody [;-)] introduced Dave Yost to Mark Horton at a
USENIX meeting, the Rand Editor has been terminal-independent via
the termcap file.  The keystrokes were developed for the Ann Arbor
K4080 terminal with S1901 Emulation Option -- tho nobody has ever
been able to tell me what S1901 was.  It was multi-window back when
the Mac was just an Apple in somebody's I.  It is great! for multiple-
text applications (among other things, i used to use it as a "visual
diff" -- can't do that in vi!) and for general dumb sit-and-enter-text
type of applications.  It allows all manner of filters to be run from
it and is therefore extensible just as 'vi' is.  Our secretaries at
SAI (when I was at SAI) in Rosslyn (when...) in 1976-1980 were intro-
duced to Re and Nroff (subset/macro pkg), and soon absolutely loved
the whole system!  Especially the trekkie who discovered startrek...
Even the Management was occasionally found typing at the terminals!
We had the AA-K4080 terminals, where you just hit the appropriate key
to do anything you wanted.  Entry was trivial, and all manner of
editing tasks (cut&paste, retrieve your 2-hour-ago change) were easy.

That was ~version 3?  Today they are up to version 24+?  I have been
using vi for quite a while because (a) it is everywhere, and (b) I
am writing C programs, and 'vi' has some nice features for C.  I may
get back to 'e' (new 're') for text, and learn Emacs for C.  On this
particular religious issue I am easy (I don't even use the Bourne-
again Shell).  But I do steadfastly maintain:
	Emacs and the Rand Editor are true screen editors.
	Vi and Vteco are, respectively, line and character
	editors playing screen editor.  Try them and see.

Joe Yao		hadron!jsdy at seismo.{ARPA,UUCP}