**Matthew Graybosch** @starbreaker · Jun 29, 2018, 00:34

**Matthew Graybosch** @starbreaker · Jun 29, 2018, 00:34

Matthew Graybosch @starbreaker

Jun 29, 2018, 00:34

unix, ed, history Show more

I succeeded in #writing almost 600 words tonight using nothing but ed(1), the same line editor Ken Thompson used to write the original Unix.

One sentence per line.
A blank line in between paragraphs.
No going back to edit previous lines.

We call ed(1) the standard Unix editor, but it might be better to call it the standard text composer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)

**Blackcap** @blackcap@todon.nl · Jun 29, 2018, 01:45

**Blackcap** @blackcap@todon.nl · Jun 29, 2018, 01:45

Jun 29, 2018, 01:45

Blackcap @blackcap@todon.nl

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@starbreaker Give TECO a try some time; it's the very first text editor, circa 1962. Emacs was original a set of Editing MACroS for Teco. https://github.com/blakemcbride/TECOC

**Matthew Graybosch** @starbreaker · 2018-06-29T12:00:39Z

Matthew Graybosch @starbreaker

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@blackcap TECO isn't available on OpenBSD as a port. :)

Jun 29, 2018, 12:00 · Web · 0 · 0

**Blackcap** @blackcap@todon.nl · Jun 29, 2018, 13:40

**Blackcap** @blackcap@todon.nl · Jun 29, 2018, 13:40

Jun 29, 2018, 13:40

Blackcap @blackcap@todon.nl

unix, ed, history Show more

@starbreaker Maybe not the version I linked but there's so many different forks of reimplementations of it in C out there that one does. I've built it on MacOS.

**Matthew Graybosch** @starbreaker · Jun 29, 2018, 13:47

**Matthew Graybosch** @starbreaker · Jun 29, 2018, 13:47

Jun 29, 2018, 13:47

Matthew Graybosch @starbreaker

unix, ed, history Show more

@blackcap Sorry. When I say it's not available on OpenBSD as a port, it means that I would have to try to compile it myself.

I'm happy to do that with tools I use (like pandoc), but having to build something like TECO before I can try it out is an actual project -- whereas it was easy to try ed on a lark because it's part of OpenBSD because Theo and the other developers are determined to stick to POSIX unless they have a good reason not to.