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7 posts · Last used Feb 12

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@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 12, 2026
@kaveman@mastodon.bsd.cafe Yes. I was mentioning this to @cks@mastodon.social the other day. https://tty0.social/@JdeBP/116030855863806427 I think that it came out in the early 1990s. The copyright dates in the source uniformly say 1983, which would make OpenWatcom vi the earliest vi clone on record (pre-dating #STEVIE by 4 years). However, they say this uniformly, even for its OS/2 and Windows NT parts, which couldn't have existed in 1983. And 1983 pre-dates even Waterloo C. So I suspect some Sybase lawyer has lied in these copyright declarations. Watcom had a non-vi multi-window and menus TUI editor for DOS named wbed.exe at one point. #Watcom #OpenWatcom #vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory
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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
@davefischer@hachyderm.io I'm guessing that that was Ritter's Heirloom vi. https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/116052015020764901 There are discussions in an Arch Linux forum of its package being removed because it hadn't changed in two decades and the (GNU flavoured) C language had. It's in the #FreeBSD ports collection; and several people have independently come up with the Makefile patch that gets it to build on Debian Linux. https://freshports.org/editors/2bsd-vi/ #vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #gcc #ArchLinux
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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
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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Boosted by Peter Cohen @flargh@mastodon.social
@arstechnica__dup_24061@c.im · Jan 05, 2026
Stewart Cheifet, PBS host who chronicled the PC revolution, dies at 87 https://arstechni.ca/rakC #ComputerChronicles #Vintagecomputing #computerhistory #InternetArchive #machinelearning #retrocomputing #StewartCheifet #GaryKildall #Obituaries #retrotech #Tech #PBS #AI
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@ajsadauskas@pixelfed.social · Nov 13, 2025
It's not an Apple 2, it's a Wombat! Apple's lawsuit against the company that sold this machine ended up going all the way to the High Court. And Apple lost! Turns out software was not covered by Australian copyright law at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Edge_v_Apple On display at https://acms.org.au/ #apple #computerhistory #law #legal #auspol
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