I Love Ed on CP/M
techtinkering.com
techtinkering.com
If you read my other post above you'll note that I use many editors and that constantly swapping from one to another is a bit of a pain.
When I was using CP/M, almost from the outset I had three editors at my disposal, specifically Ed, WordMaster and WordStar. Of the three, it was generally accepted that WordMaster was the easiest for a novice to learn. WordStar was harder to learn but much more powerful. Thus Ed was reserved for when setting up a CP/M system as it came on the 8" floppy along with CP/M. On the other hand WM and WS were third party products and came on a separate floppy. If they'd been always available then I don't think Ed would have been used at all.
Ed always had the reputation of being a bit of a PIA and no one wanted to use it if the other two editors were available. It was always looked upon as being primitive by comparison.
As WS was more powerful and flexible, Ed was thus confined to editing when only CP/M files were available. Today, that comparison would be like comparing Notepad with say UltraEdit, which, incidentally, is my current text-based editor of choice (it having both Windows and Linux versions).
(I love ED too btw)
Technically yes, but thousands of programs were written in them. I can only say that I wasn't the only one who didn't like it (and I had every reason to love it as even at home I had a fully equipped GodBout/CompuPro dual proc 8085/86 S100 system running CP/M and CP/M86 which was pretty much the king of CP/M systems. (Incidentally, I used to edit the HMXBIOS assembler code for that in WordStar in non document mode. For me it was a dream to used compared with. ED.
Even my resident assembler guru who considered any high level language you'd name too wasteful of CPU cycles, would send a file from a serial port on the CP/M machine to his Intel development system and edit it there then send it back again rather than using ED.
I've seen this dichotomy many times amongst programmers and I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with the ergonomics of the way people think and work.
However, lately I've been thinking of writing a modal editor for Linux based on CP/M's ED. I know there is ED and EX on Linux but I prefer ED on CP/M and have been wondering where I could take that idea and possibly replace some of my use of VIM.
MNCPM^Z0TT6Z-3DICP/M^Z
However, there are things I like in ED/EX such as the regular expressions.
Despite my earlier criticism of ED, I've always liked CP/M's command line structure and switch parameters. For example, here's one I think I remember: PIP B:=A: [V O] (I hope that's right, it's been a long time.)
I wonder if that elogence is Kildall's work, as I've never been sure whether GK just took the PDP/DEC command stuff verbatim or whether he altered some items.
Could have been a matter of older age but I remember the same happened to data input operators at work that switched from DOS applications to mouse based programs. Productivity plummeted.
Most people who used WS loved it, and they only traded it under duress for say WordPerfect.
I still have hundreds of files in WS format and from time to time I've imported some into MS Word in the days when it had a WS importer but now I no longer bother. The reason is that I now have WordStar 7 running under emulation on Windows 7.
It's strangely familiar to be editing with WordStar on Windows these days but it still has its advantages. If one uses dozens of different programs like I do, one finds it's often difficult to remember where some particular feature is in the menus from one program to another. For instance, I use MS Word to about the same extent as I do LibreOffice and I'm forever annoyed that they don't have the same menu/command structure as it wastes time constantly switching one's mind around.
This is particularly annoying when simultaneously using Windows machines side by side with Linux ones. On Windows one's using Office, and on Linux LibreOffice.
Using a command line editor like WordStar solves this because one automatically knows where all the Ctrl keys are.
Sometimes when I'm trying to get thoughts into text quickly I'll bash them out in WordStar then if necessary I'll pretty them up in Office or LibO.
Your mother was absolutely right, command line wordprocessors are great for quick entry and when you don't want your train of thought distracted by mucking about with formatting, etc.
WordStar was wonderfully logical this way.
Incidentally, I remember years ago in the 1980s at a software trade show where MicroPro was exhibiting its new WordStar 2000, talking - almost arguing - with Seymour Rubenstein (the owner of WS), that the new, supposedly simpler but quite different, command structure in WordStar 2000 wouldn't take off and be popular, as all old WS users wouldn't want to relearn new commands for ones that were perfectly OK and that it would have to compete with established WordPerfect and the new kid on the block MS Word. Turned out that I was right, WS 2000 died long before its older sibling did. This is a classic example of how not to tamper with or upgrade a perfectly good product.
Just like that Polish mechanic who was still in the 21st Century using his custom coded C64 program for wheel balancing, how many of us who pine for the good old days still wish to live in them? I argue we still in fact have that choice - don't we?
What's the problem getting people to understand the commands? Is it that these days everyone is bought up on GUI pull-downs and that no one's prepared to take the time to learn them? Or perhaps part of it is that what I mentioned, there's too many different editors around and most will prefer ones without seemingly difficult/cryptic commands?
To me, learning commands/keyboard shortcuts is always preferable to just menu operation.