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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 12, 2026
@gumnos@mastodon.bsd.cafe I mentioned Guckes's list not having Heirloom vi in that other thread. I haven't thought about these in years, and they are an understandable additional blind spot in Guckes's list; but the MKS Toolkit had a vi, as did Interix. https://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/man1/vi.1.asp The :open test indicates that vi in the MKS Toolkit was actual Joy+Horton vi. #Interix (at least according to an old Scott Mueller book) had both vi and nvi, so I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to have been Bostic #nvi by two names. As I recall, Central Point PC Tools, the Norton Utilities, and the Graham Utilities had text editors of varying degrees but did not have vi. @cks@mastodon.social #vi #ComputerHistory #retrocomputing
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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 12, 2026
@cks@mastodon.social OpenWatcom vi is source available. https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/116052015020764901 Ritter's Heirloom #vi is in #FreeBSD ports today, coming from the same place that it has for a long time. https://freshports.org/editors/2bsd-vi/ It was dropped from #ArchLinux because it did not compile and hadn't changed in 20 years. Ironically, this is because the (GNU) C language had changed, and it has to nowadays be compiled forcing an older GNU C language version. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2285124#p2285124 Several people have independently discovered the Makefile patch that gets it to build on #Debian and the like. https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=629775 https://gist.github.com/cwfoo/01abac5c39f398b7e7b16a2b87aa518b #elvis, the precursor to #nvi, is packaged for both #NetBSD/#pkgsrc and #OpenBSD. https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/editors/elvis/index.html https://github.com/openbsd/ports/tree/master/editors/elvis #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #Watcom #OpenWatcom
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JdeBP @JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk
On #Illumos, Jov vi is in /usr/src/cmd/vi: https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/tree/master/usr/src/cmd/vi On #OpenBSD, Bostic #nvi is in /usr/src/usr.bin/vi/vi; #NetBSD having it in /usr/src/external/bsd/nvi; and #FreeBSD in /usr/src/contrib/nvi: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/contrib/nvi FreeBSD has an nvi2 in ports: https://freshports.org/editors/nvi2/ OpenBSD has elvis in ports: https://github.com/openbsd/ports/blob/master/editors/elvis/pkg/DESCR Ritter's Heirloom vi is on SourceForge: https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net STEVIE was posted to comp.sources.unix in 1988: https://sources.vsta.org/comp.sources.unix/volume15/stevie/ Unfortunately, Sven Guckes's vi Clones WWW site was never completed with some of this, notably lacking Heirloom vi, for example. https://guckes.net/vi/clones.html But it does mention oft-overlooked commercial clones such as Watcom's vi, a from-scratch implementation started in 1983 that is also now source-available: https://github.com/open-watcom/owp4v1copy/tree/master/bld/vi #vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #STEVIE #elvis #VIM #NeoVIM #Watcom #OpenWatcom
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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 11, 2026
@gumnos@mastodon.bsd.cafe @joel@gts.tumfatig.net It's a good test. I probably haven't used open mode since I started building #STEVIE from source back in the 1980s. Which of course I used on VDU terminals, not the paper ones. (-: The test for it being Bostic #nvi , in my experience, is whether it supports :qa . #vi
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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 11, 2026
On #Illumos, Jov vi is in /usr/src/cmd/vi: https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/tree/master/usr/src/cmd/vi On #OpenBSD, Bostic #nvi is in /usr/src/usr.bin/vi/vi; #NetBSD having it in /usr/src/external/bsd/nvi; and #FreeBSD in /usr/src/contrib/nvi: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/contrib/nvi FreeBSD has an nvi2 in ports: https://freshports.org/editors/nvi2/ OpenBSD has elvis in ports: https://github.com/openbsd/ports/blob/master/editors/elvis/pkg/DESCR Ritter's Heirloom vi is on SourceForge: https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net STEVIE was posted to comp.sources.unix in 1988: https://sources.vsta.org/comp.sources.unix/volume15/stevie/ Unfortunately, Sven Guckes's vi Clones WWW site was never completed with some of this, notably lacking Heirloom vi, for example. https://guckes.net/vi/clones.html But it does mention oft-overlooked commercial clones such as Watcom's vi, a from-scratch implementation started in 1983 that is also now source-available: https://github.com/open-watcom/owp4v1copy/tree/master/bld/vi #vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #STEVIE #elvis #VIM #NeoVIM #Watcom #OpenWatcom
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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 11, 2026
People waxing lyrical about using 'original vi', both nowadays in 2026 and back in 2006, haven't a clue what that is. There's only one family of operating systems where 'vi' will actually run the original vi program by Joy, Horton, et al.: #Illumos and its derivatives #Tribblix, #OmniOS, and #SmartOS. *Everyone else* uses one of the ground-up clones. On #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD, and #NetBSD, it's Bostic's early 1990s #nvi, which was derived from Kirkendall's elvis, a clone written some time around 1990. On Linux-based operating systems, vi either is Bostic nvi, or is one of the derivatives of STEVIE (the middle-1980s vi clone for the Atari ST that inspired Kirkendall to write elvis in the first place): Moolenaar's VIM or NeoVIM. On none of those will you get original Joy+Horton vi in base, or indeed packaged/in ports. Yes, Heirloom vi exists, which is Ritter's 2002 fork of 1985 Joy+Horton vi. But it's not even available in Arch Linux nowadays. #vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory
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