Discussion:
vi for PDP-11 Unix
(too old to reply)
j***@mdfs.net
2014-01-31 06:18:22 UTC
Permalink
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?

jgh
Johnny Billquist
2014-01-31 12:20:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...

Johnny
Bill Gunshannon
2014-01-31 14:37:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There are versions of vi in Linux and all the Open Source BSD's
as well. I would think any of them would work.

bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
***@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
Johnny Billquist
2014-01-31 17:35:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There are versions of vi in Linux and all the Open Source BSD's
as well. I would think any of them would work.
Ha! I would bet *none* of them work. We're talking about a PDP-11 here.
Any "modern" version of vi (or even worse - vim) is just going to be so
bloated there is no chance you'll ever be able to get it to run on a PDP-11.

Johnny
Bill Gunshannon
2014-01-31 19:04:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There are versions of vi in Linux and all the Open Source BSD's
as well. I would think any of them would work.
Ha! I would bet *none* of them work. We're talking about a PDP-11 here.
Any "modern" version of vi (or even worse - vim) is just going to be so
bloated there is no chance you'll ever be able to get it to run on a PDP-11.
Probably right. but then, it's just vi, not emacs. :-)

OK, how about this. The source for ex is available in the Ultrix-11
sources. Some comments about possibly needing overlays (probably if
you don't have a split I&D machine but a lot of hints about how to
leave some less used stuff out to make it smaller. I know that works
on a PDP-11. :-)

bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
***@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
Johnny Billquist
2014-02-01 00:36:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There are versions of vi in Linux and all the Open Source BSD's
as well. I would think any of them would work.
Ha! I would bet *none* of them work. We're talking about a PDP-11 here.
Any "modern" version of vi (or even worse - vim) is just going to be so
bloated there is no chance you'll ever be able to get it to run on a PDP-11.
Probably right. but then, it's just vi, not emacs. :-)
OK, how about this. The source for ex is available in the Ultrix-11
sources. Some comments about possibly needing overlays (probably if
you don't have a split I&D machine but a lot of hints about how to
leave some less used stuff out to make it smaller. I know that works
on a PDP-11. :-)
Well, why not the 2bsd version of vi?

And you have an Emacs clone in 2bsd as well...

Johnny
Mark G Thomas
2014-02-03 15:29:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by Bill Gunshannon
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There are versions of vi in Linux and all the Open Source BSD's
as well. I would think any of them would work.
Ha! I would bet *none* of them work. We're talking about a PDP-11 here.
Any "modern" version of vi (or even worse - vim) is just going to be so
bloated there is no chance you'll ever be able to get it to run on a PDP-11.
Probably right. but then, it's just vi, not emacs. :-)
OK, how about this. The source for ex is available in the Ultrix-11
sources. Some comments about possibly needing overlays (probably if
you don't have a split I&D machine but a lot of hints about how to
leave some less used stuff out to make it smaller. I know that works
on a PDP-11. :-)
Well, why not the 2bsd version of vi?
And you have an Emacs clone in 2bsd as well...
Johnny
2.11 BSD for pdp11 includes vi, and works great on my 11/53 and 11/83.

Mark
--
Mark G. Thomas (***@Misty.com)
http://mail-cleaner.com/
Andy Valencia
2014-01-31 14:57:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Johnny Billquist
Post by j***@mdfs.net
The Unix v6 and v7 distribution images I have which I
use with SIMH and E11 have /ed/ but not /vi/. Is /vi/
available anywhere?
Yes. With BSD. It's a BSD addition after all...
There was a backport to V7, but it'll be an *old* version,
and I seem to recollect that it required split I/D. A good
starting point would be BSD 2.11 (or 2.9 if that ends up being
too "modern") for the PDP-11.

Andy Valencia
Home page: http://www.vsta.org/andy/
To contact me: http://www.vsta.org/contact/andy.html
Christian Corti
2014-02-05 10:30:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andy Valencia
There was a backport to V7, but it'll be an *old* version,
and I seem to recollect that it required split I/D. A good
starting point would be BSD 2.11 (or 2.9 if that ends up being
too "modern") for the PDP-11.
Not true; 'vi' surely doesn't need split I/D processors. After all, I
can run it quite nicely on a 11/34 under 2.9BSD. Avoid 2.11BSD if you
don't have a large system (> 128 kwords of memory) with split I/D.

Christian
w***@gmail.com
2015-05-05 14:33:58 UTC
Permalink
There was a version of VI eventually called levee that was written by students @ UW Madison in the early '80s that went with their unix command interpreter running under UCSD I.5 running on the 8510a Teraks in the computer lab. These 5 or 6 computers were used by the beginning Pascal programming course between 1982 -- 1985.. The system was called OSY, and I found it quite remarkable that they were able to simulate a unix like experience on the machines. Needless to say, levee was written in Pascal, but was later converted to C and ported to Windows and Linux. Very small footprint.

Now, if I could only read all my 8" floppies, and if they are still good...

I also at one point had the source to the older unix vi, but from what I recall, it required some system calls that were not available on Venix/11 which I was running on the Terak 11/23 system I had at the time.
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