![](https://seccdn.libravatar.org/avatar/c85c078174b85b3c27e9c68f92d6b3ff.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Lonn Dugan wrote:
Since earliest days of Unix -- vi was/is a screen editor; ed, a line at a time tool. (see edlin in earliest PC DOS) Wouldn't you love to have earliest edition of Brian W. Kernighan/Rob Pike "The Unix Programming Environment" or Brian W. Kernighan/Dennis M. Ritchie "The C Programming Language"
Holy mackerel! Don't you ever compare ed (a line editor that could basically do everything except making coffee) with edlin (a line editor that could basically do nothing). Ed was designed with a teletype in mind (the pre-crt stage of computing) edlin was designed without anything in mind. Editing with edlin was editing with both hands tied behind your back and you had to type with your nose. Yikes! -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704