Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:56:08 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dag-Erling_Co=EFdanSm=F8rgrav?= <dag-erli@ifi.uio.no>, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ed Message-ID: <19980911085608.N583@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=3Cxzp4suf4s55=2Efsf=40hel=2Eifi=2Euio=2Eno=3E=3B_from_Da?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?g-Erling_Co=EFdanSm=F8rgrav__on_Thu=2C_Sep_10=2C_1998_at_?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?10:41:42PM_%2B0200?= References: <9698.905291210@time.cdrom.com> <35F7CF17.E0C82BCA@softweyr.com> <xzp4suf4s55.fsf@hel.ifi.uio.no>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thursday, 10 September 1998 at 22:41:42 +0200, Dag-Erling CoïdanSmørgrav wrote:
> Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> writes:
>> Yeah, me too. Those who think ed is bad should try, for instance,
>> that horrid editor that came with CP/M, or "sos" on TOPS-10. Or,
>
> Son Of Stopgap, an editor that was written to replace an editor that
> was written to replace an editor while waiting for the next (better)
> editor. Or something like that.
Ah yes, now I remember the TLA. From the Jargon File:
:SOS: /S-O-S/ /n. obs./ 1. An infamously {losing} text
editor. Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for
the PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a {quick-and-dirty}
`stopgap editor' to be used until a better one was written.
Unfortunately, the old one was never really discarded when new ones
(in particular, {TECO}) came along. SOS is a descendant (`Son
of Stopgap') of that editor, and many PDP-10 users gained the
dubious pleasure of its acquaintance. Since then other programs
similar in style to SOS have been written, notably the early font
editor BILOS /bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the
alternate expansion `Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap' has been
proposed). 2. /sos/ /vt./ To decrease; inverse of {AOS}, from
the PDP-10 instruction set.
>> as an example of something other FreeBSD'ers MAY have seen, edlin.
>> Remember that barfluous little botch?
>
> Actually, most of my acquaintances agree that edlin and debug are
> Microsoft's two best products ever.
Maybe because they weren't from Microsoft? I still have the source to
both of them from my 86/DOS release from Seattle Computer Products in
late 1980. They don't seem to have changed since.
> You wouldn't imagine how much fun one can have with debug... My
> favorite DOS horror story is about the time I rebuilt my primary FAT
> using debug as a hex editor :)
Right, you could write to disk with it. A nice idea at the time.
Greg
--
See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers
finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19980911085608.N583>