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To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
Cc: jfieber@indiana.edu (John Fieber), p.richards@elsevier.co.uk,
        andreas@knobel.gun.de, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au,
        kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: /stand/ee 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 20 May 1996 23:19:16 PDT."
             <199605210619.IAA09246@uriah.heep.sax.de> 
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 16:16:03 -0700
From: "Mike O'Brien" <obrien@antares.aero.org>
Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org
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George Coulouris is quoted as saying
  Unfortunately, *vi* didn't pick up some of the human interface
  principles that were embedded in *em*.

As far as I know the first full-screen editor for UNIX was the Rand editor.
I still use it.  I have tried to port it to FreeBSD but there is something
very broken somewhere.  It seems to run fine on the console windows but
there is something busted under X.  It seems to have the number of lines
in the window all wrong somehow.  It runs fine under X on Suns, and a
friend of mine who still works at Rand (and is the editor's current
maintainer) has ported it to Linux.  I'd rather get a "native" FreeBSD
port going than just adopt the Linux port.  Ah well.

"vi" didn't take any user interface ideas from the Rand editor, nor did
anybody else.  That's why the Rand editor remains the only "white space"
editor under UNIX.  No more messing around with where a line ends.  Put
the cursor where you want, start typing, and the editor takes care of
the rest.

Conceptually, the Rand editor is based on Ned Irons' work at Yale.

Mike O'Brien