VDE for Unix


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Date: Sat, 31 Jul 99 22:46:22
From: b.cohen@SYSLINK.MCS.COM
Subject: Sue



We had SUE at the 20-20 FTPMAIL site.

Here's the history, though it has been posted "here" before:

Eric Meyer wrote a number of versions of VDE for CP/M, starting in
1984, as improvements to VDO by Fritz Schneider (1982), as adapted
by George Peace (1984) for the Osborne Executive (stolen from the
history in the VDE 2.66 documents; I have a copy of them on a
shelf in my computer room).  The last CP/M version of VDE was 2.66
released in June 1988.

In December 1987 Eric released VDE 1.0 for IBM PCs and
compatibles.

At some point after abandoning CP/M, Eric gave the source for the
CP/M version of VDE to Carson Wilson, who was at that time sysop
of the BBS of Chicago's First Osborne Group (which I then served
as editor of its newsletter, _PIP_, having formerly been President
of CFOG, and having served as a "remote co-sysop" of the BBS).  As
Eric retained the rights to the VDE name, Carson adopted the name
ZDE (for Z-Systom Compatible Display Editor) and released ZDE 1.0
around April 1989 (documented in the April 15, 1989, issue of
_PIP_).  ZDE 1.3, probably the last version of ZDE, was reported
in the August 31, 1989, issue of _PIP_.

The following is the READ_ME.SUE file (no point in my rewriting
it!) written by Bill Kuykendall (also a former President of CFOG
and former Sysop of its BBS):

     If you are looking for UDE (heir to VDE), you have
     found it.  For reasons too boring to explain, we
     changed the 'Unix Display Editor's name to SUE (Simple
     Unix Editor) several years back.  SUE is Revision 2 of
     the same program.  I now own the UDE name as well, so
     it could be changed back if there was a worthwhile
     reason.  Link the executable to the ude name (as I
     always have) and you'll be off and running as is.

     UDE/SUE is the result of collaboration.  Eric Meyer
     created the original VDE which was the template for our
     program.  After years of hating vi and emacs, I hired
     Carson Wilson (finisher of CP/M VDE and author of ZDE)
     to write UDE.  Carson has donated a tremendous amount
     of unpaid time as well.

     I selected the features and managed the creation of
     UDE, and Carson wrote and debugged the code.

     UDE/SUE is not a feature-for-feature clone of VDE.  My
     goal was to make an editor that was appropriate for use
     in a UNIX environment -- and make it as much like VDE
     as possible.  There are no printer control features in
     VDE/SUE because UNIX has an entire subsystem dedicated
     to printing.  But there is auto-recovery of the editor
     buffer if your session drops. UDE/SUE will also edit
     UNIX, PC and Macintosh textfile formats transparently
     (or even translate them if you wish) for environments
     where you have mixed filetypes on the same media.  It
     doesn't edit multiple files, or make .BAK files because
     those features would be inappropriate for an email
     editor. It does have a WordPerfect mode for users who
     don't remember WordStar and it has novice modes for
     each command set.  The ALT-Key interface is gone,
     because UNIX TERMINFO doesn't support ALT-Keys.
     Finally, like VDE, we tried to keep the footprint
     small, which is considerably more difficult to
     accomplish when portability and multiple user
     interfaces are also requirements.

     Neither Carson nor I currently have time to donate to
     supporting this program. But it has been stable (and in
     continuous use) for at least 7 years and should not
     need support if you can get it compiled on your system.
     There are several precompiled binaries in the bin
     subdirectory.  Feel free to upload more if you build
     any new ones.

     If you use a PC to telnet to the host you're working
     with, you may have problems with your terminal
     emulation, especially if you use the function-key
     (WordPerfect) mode of UDE.  Take a look at the README
     file in the term_emul directory.  You'll find one
     solution to this problem there.

     There is a man page.  It is the only documentation.
     You should read it once, just to find out the features
     and modes of UDE/SUE, if nothing else.

     UDE/SUE is copyrighted by Point to Point
     Communications, Inc. (PPCI).  You may use and
     distribute it freely under the terms of the GNU
     Copyleft Agreement.

     The primary source for UDE/SUE binaries, code and
     support files is ftp://ftp.ppci.com/pub/ude .  The
     references above to subdirectories apply to this site
     as well.

     Enjoy,

     Bill Kuykendall
     President, PPCI
     wek@ppci.com

And that's the scoop on SU


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