Screen editing and where it should go....

[Charlie Martin]

In-reply-to: peter at ficc.UUCP's message of 1 Aug 88 18:59:03 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: where to do line editing?
References: <678 at gtx.com> <593 at blblbl.UUCP> <8263 at brl-smoke.ARPA> <1188 at ficc.UUCP>

In article <1188 at ficc.UUCP> peter at ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:


   In article <8263 at brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn at brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
   > Terminal input editing belongs where the input is being done,
   > namely the terminal.

   How IBM mainframe of you. How about putting file editing in the terminal
   as well?

Actually, the screen editor I liked best of all editors ever was a
probably bootlegged HP editor on the HP1000 (who remembers *that*
machine!).  It used the smarts of the HP 26xx terminals and simply
downloaded a chunk of file along with some other stuff into the
terminal; you edited the file with the terminal, and when you were ready
you said "okay I'm done with this chunk" and it sucked it back up (no
smart remarks).  Command line editing worked the same way, and worked
like a charm.

It may sound like a dreadful way -- and it was a little trouble,
sometimes, that the terminal tab stops were hard to download -- but the
only thing that comes close in utility is GNU Emacs with special modes.

But I could run this editor on the HP1000 -- which was not a real
performer: the primary advantage to it was that you could drop it a
meter and it would continue to run, the circuit boards looked like they
were built onto green masonite -- *while* hard real-time work was being
done, and not slow the processor at all.

Notice what I said: not "not slow the processor appreciably" but "not
slow the processor AT ALL" -- at least until you left the file.  Since
the chunks could be 100 lines at a time, or could be edited completely
offline by making a tape on the terminal, this was not usually a problem.
Charlie Martin (crm at cs.duke.edu,mcnc!duke!crm)