On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Dave C. wrote:
> Would this editor be available for third parties to try? I am personally
> still very much a pico-ite (And I am NOT a unix newbie), but would
> always be willing to try new things. Heck, I use to love the old DOS
> edlin.
It's available. It's not a product in the sense that it was never
packaged up nicely, and the documentation consists of a manual plus a
"what's changed since the manual was printed" document. (But the manual
is no longer printed - it's a text file only.) Note that the manual is
dated 1994, so this software is vintage stuff! But I use it all the
time, and there are a dedicated band of other users.
Go to the ftp directory
ftp.cus.cam.ac.uk:/pub/software/programs/NE
and start by downloading and reading the README file.
Historical note:
The origins of this text editor go right back to the early editors
implemented in Cambridge in the 1960s. The first ones edited paper
tapes; then discs arrived and the editors worked on files; then
timesharing arrived and interactivity was added (line by line, on
teletypes) and finally full-screen editing was reached. Meanwhile the
coding went from assembler (non-portable) to BCPL and finally to C (both
portable). I got involved in the mid 1970's, working on an IBM mainframe
initially (an editor called Zed, written in assembler) and then on
multiple systems (a BCPL editor called E, which was re-written in C and
changed a bit to become NE, the editor we are talking about).
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
