Maybe those legacy editors are still around in discussion because of their „paradigmas“ they created around editing text on a computer. Editor „Brief“ refers maybe besides other features to „incremental“ Home / End Keys (e.g. first HOME press moves caret to Start-Of-Line, a second press moves the caret a line up, till Start-of-File) or more in general to key commands which became models for period of time for many editors. Just like the Wordstar „diamond“ arrow subtitution right/left/up/down, which actually is not ideal. Other combintations CTL-q, CTL-O, CLT-K like „groups“ of commands can be found in many editors of that time. It is strange that so many similar approaches were just recreated and „cloned“. (The discussed usefullnes of "h j k l“ navigating keys in vim is well known.)
Interesting to me in all this is the connection (or lack of) between hardware - i.e. the keyboard layout - and the software (control keys, greykeys etc.). Usability and ergonomy has been sacrified for a much to broad scope of uses and - marketing. The Atari keyboard „middle block“ has its own design: HELP | Undo ———————————————————————— Insert | up | Clr Home ———————————————————————— left | dwn| right Maybe this is somewhat a progress to have a dedicated UNDO-key or HELP-key? Or was it just to be „different“, like the bumps on old Apple keys on „d“ and „k“ instead of „f“ and „j“? Hard to say one is better then the other. We only became „locked into“ a system in the last 50 years. So each and every text editor (especially those) provokes a quasi-religious attitude of the user towards the computer and its behaviour. Adding pull-down menues or calling the menue by pressing F10 or F1 for Help… Most of these conventions are gone because of the ubiquity of the mouse or touchpad. I find it surprising to use „Mouskeys“ in DOS editors which probably never where thought to be used with the mouse. Besides inventive features or approaches in design of the software itself me personally, I am looking for an optimal workflow combining keyboard/mouse and software with what I want do with the editor. (Not programming) Coding / „Programming“ is definitely different from prose writing. The first uses much more line breaks, Tabs, pairs of parenthesis, for example. Maybe also more going back and forth from one spot to another and back again etc. than the letter, where you have to be able to quickly correct typos on the fly. Printing, which has been such a killer issue, has become IMHO much less important lately, as most text feed into the web (blogs) or Emails. PDF as the main currency. Word’s doc format unfortunately is asked nearly in every domain as the common denominator. Be green - use your screen! Designing a *complete* system for editing text must include the actual keyboard layout, dedicated keys, the pointing device, the editor software (yeah), and the… operating system. All need to finally feed into the „ergonomic“ aspect (key-chording in legacy Emacs can in bad cases lead to injury of the hands), free the unnecessary mental load (editing prose in vi/vim having in mind which mode one is in, is mindf**k). The two paradigma Emacs/Vi(m) are rather similar in contrast to the ACME and SAM editors, using the three button mouse. And just to mention it, there once was Jef Raskin's „Canon Cat“. His paradigma of „all is text“ (like Rob Pike’s ACME?) but denying the use of the mouse in favour of a copyrighted „Leap“ key, which basically is Emacs’ search-command. Gaining seconds but asking the user to retype typos in order to move the caret to that spot. It is amazing how these geniuses were somewhat wrong in predicting the future despite the objective superiority of their concepts. Raskin’s work (Swyft card, THE, ARCHY) dove into oblivion. Rob Pike in 1991 wrote an article ( http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/help/help.pdf ) which is still worth reading. Let me quote: "Where will we be ten years from now? CRT’s will be a thing of the past, multimedia will no longer be a buzzword, pen-based and voice input will be everywhere, and university students will still be editing with emacs. Pens and touchscreens are too low-bandwidth for real interaction; voice will probably also turn out to be inadequate. (Anyway, who would want to work in an environment surrounded by people talking to their computers?) Mice are sure to be with us a while longer, so we should learn how to use them well.“ Did he say „ten years“? 1991 is now thirty years ago… He didn’t speak about tablets/smartphones - but have you tried working with text editing on a touch-screen? Orrrgh. Today one can easily realize one’s own design of a keyboard, or have extra special macro keyboards, or pointing devices like roller mouse, trackpad, magic mouse etc. Still the software lacks enormously, especially for text editing in prose. Sound’s pretensiously silly, I know. But, Keyboard Commands seem for many people old fashioned and awkward in Text editing, navigating, working with the system. It’s all absurdly bloated, even the computer system is enormous. Looking back at those thoughts, designs and ideas of thirty+ years ago, using DOS, trying out maybe Plan9 (hmm…?) is worthwhile to get an idea that there is more to computing than windows, linux or MacOS, more than MS-Word. This can only achieved if the software enters a status of „oldtimer“, like with cars in Europe, where after a while the whole issue of individual rights might of design ideas become „open source“ out of public interest. This might be very Un-American, right, I am writing from an European perspective. -Thomas PS: The VDE Editor is nice and still active and sort of public domain… https://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/Home > Am 07.05.2021 um 13:58 schrieb Liam Proven <lpro...@gmail.com>: > > On Fri, 7 May 2021 at 03:58, dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Once upon a time, an outfit called Mark of the Unicorn made an editor >> for CP/M called Mince, which was an acronym for Mince Is Not Complete >> Emacs. It used the Emacs design and keyboard mappings, but there were >> limits to what you could do in CP/M where you *might* have 48K to hold >> OS, program, and data. It was ported to MS DOS by MOTU. As far as I >> can tell, it was then acquired by a company called Underware and >> sold/supported by them. >> >> Borland acquired the product from Underware, and released a version as >> The Final World. Final Word was then released in a new version and >> renamed Sprint. Sprint was a popular word processor for MS DOS, >> notable for an extensive macro language making it more like "real" >> emacs.. As DOS became moribund and Windows took over. Borland >> withdrew Sprint from the market. I have a copy of Sprint sent to me >> in the original distribution archive, but he didn't specify where *he* >> got it. Lacking provenance, I *didn't* make it available for download >> from TextEditors. I just documented that it used to exist. > > Fair. > > I tried Sprint back when it was new. It was a remarkable program, with > 2 compelling features: > • it could emulate the UIs of most of the leading DOS WPs of the time, > so whatever one you knew, you could use Sprint; > • it saved continuously in the background, so even if the PC crashed, > you shouldn't lose more than a word or 2 of your text. > > The snags were: > #1 was rapidly becoming irrelevant as everyone's DOS apps converged on > the IBM CUA standard of look and feel, as even today, most GUIs still > honour, even on Linux... > > ... and #2 didn't work so reliably with the fairly new tech of DOS > disk caches that could cache writes as well as reads. > > Meanwhile, Sprint was relatively poor at formatting and layout, and > printer drivers, which were becoming killer features at the time. > > A very good idea that came along a bit too late. > >> Borland has been gradually releasing ancient stuff under a Community >> license, and things like Turbo Pascal and Turbo C are available as a >> free download and free to use. If memory serves, source is available >> too, but of questionable use. Good luck acquiring the proper >> toolchain and being *able* to change and rebuild.it. >> >> I recall Brief being promised, but not available the last time I >> looked. Should it *become* available. I\ll link to it on TextEditors/ > > I never used Brief but then I was not and am not really a programmer. > > However I note that there is a GPL clone of it: > https://github.com/adamyg/grief > > And a commercial one: > https://crisp.com/ > > Neither supports DOS, but as Grief looks to be a text-mode app, it > might be feasible to port it. Probably a lot of work for someone, > though. > >> There *isn't* one. WordStar was never formally made freeware. It was >> simply abandoned. Note that the WordStar.org site explicitly *states* >> you will not find binaries there, and why.. It's front and center on >> the site.. > > Indeed so. > > There is the unfinished-but-working WordTsar: > http://wordtsar.ca/ > >> Bluntly, the implicit assumption I might *not* have is offensive and >> personally *insultiing*., If you want to continue this conversation >> with me, you can give me a formal apology and *not* do that again.. > > To be honest, I have felt the same way about several people's replies > to me here on this list. I was part of this community 12+ years ago, > but I found the tone rather hostile so I left. Now I have returned, > because I am intermittently pursuing a couple of DOS-related projects > of my own, I quickly remembered why I left. > > All I can say is: it's not just you. :-( I get a strong feeling of > being treated like an idiot and condescended to. > > -- > Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
