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An incomplete history of the QED Text Editor (2004) (bell-labs.com)
60 points by shawndumas on Aug 7, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



vi keeps a current view of a piece of a document on the screen, while commands are typed on the bottom line. Keeping a constantly updated window on a part of the text being edited is now, of course, completely standard and accepted.

Was screen editing ever not completely accepted? What were some contemporary arguments against it, other than resource usage?


Updating the screen has been accepted now for at least 40 years. Before then, there were computers without screens. People connected typewriters to them to get interactive input/output [1]. Before then, there were even trickier solutions.

Sometimes, remote terminals have broken layout, and people use the old editors again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Use_a...


I understand that. The article assumes the reader understands that.

I wonder if there were contemporary arguments against screen editing, 40 years ago.




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