3 ms·

Honestly, I really do love it. I've used plenty of other editors on CP/M and now that I've got used to ED I just don't find them as quick or often as powerful

Honestly, I really do love it. I've used plenty of other editors on CP/M and now that I've got used to ED I just don't find them as quick or often as powerful as ED. That doesn't mean that they don't have extra features that can be useful, but considering how little I use those extra features I think ED comes out in front for me. I think the accompanying video demonstrates quite well how easy it is to use.

314 6y ago
You should upgrade to vi :)
- LawrenceWoodman 6y ago
  It's funny that you should say that because VI/VIM, another modal editor, is my editor of choice on Linux, with JSTAR second. However, lately I've been thinking of writing a modal editor for Linux based on CP/M's ED. I know there is ED and EX on Linux but I prefer ED on CP/M and have been wondering where I could take that idea and possibly replace some of my use of VIM.
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    Why do you prefer ED on CPM to that on UNIX/Linux?
    - LawrenceWoodman 6y ago
      I think it's generally cleaner, more elegant and the combining of commands on a line is easier. I love that you can create macros such as: MNCPM^Z0TT6Z-3DICP/M^Z This will go through a file bigger than memory, display each line containing 'CPM', pause and then replace it with 'CP/M'. However, there are things I like in ED/EX such as the regular expressions.
      - hilbert42 6y ago
        Right, thanks for that. I've not used either in a while and when I did there was a long separation between using one then the other so it's a bit lost to memory (same for Vim). Despite my earlier criticism of ED, I've always liked CP/M's command line structure and switch parameters. For example, here's one I think I remember: PIP B:=A: [V O] (I hope that's right, it's been a long time.) I wonder if that elogence is Kildall's work, as I've never been sure whether GK just took the PDP/DEC command stuff verbatim or whether he altered some items.
- hilbert42 6y ago
  "Really, they serve totally different functions." Technically yes, but thousands of programs were written in them. I can only say that I wasn't the only one who didn't like it (and I had every reason to love it as even at home I had a fully equipped GodBout/CompuPro dual proc 8085/86 S100 system running CP/M and CP/M86 which was pretty much the king of CP/M systems. (Incidentally, I used to edit the HMXBIOS assembler code for that in WordStar in non document mode. For me it was a dream to used compared with. ED. Even my resident assembler guru who considered any high level language you'd name too wasteful of CPU cycles, would send a file from a serial port on the CP/M machine to his Intel development system and edit it there then send it back again rather than using ED. I've seen this dichotomy many times amongst programmers and I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with the ergonomics of the way people think and work.
hilbert42 6y ago
Perhaps the reason you love it is because you've spend a great amount of time using it to the extent that its use has become completely automatic to you. If you read my other post above you'll note that I use many editors and that constantly swapping from one to another is a bit of a pain. When I was using CP/M, almost from the outset I had three editors at my disposal, specifically Ed, WordMaster and WordStar. Of the three, it was generally accepted that WordMaster was the easiest for a novice to learn. WordStar was harder to learn but much more powerful. Thus Ed was reserved for when setting up a CP/M system as it came on the 8" floppy along with CP/M. On the other hand WM and WS were third party products and came on a separate floppy. If they'd been always available then I don't think Ed would have been used at all. Ed always had the reputation of being a bit of a PIA and no one wanted to use it if the other two editors were available. It was always looked upon as being primitive by comparison. As WS was more powerful and flexible, Ed was thus confined to editing when only CP/M files were available. Today, that comparison would be like comparing Notepad with say UltraEdit, which, incidentally, is my current text-based editor of choice (it having both Windows and Linux versions).
- hungryforcodes 6y ago
  But to be fair, ED is an actual editor, and incrediably useful in CP/M for quick fixes, edits and various other things. WordMaster and WordStar are word processors. Really, they serve totally different functions. (I love ED too btw)

314 6y ago

You should upgrade to vi :)

LawrenceWoodman 6y ago
It's funny that you should say that because VI/VIM, another modal editor, is my editor of choice on Linux, with JSTAR second. However, lately I've been thinking of writing a modal editor for Linux based on CP/M's ED. I know there is ED and EX on Linux but I prefer ED on CP/M and have been wondering where I could take that idea and possibly replace some of my use of VIM.
- hilbert42 6y ago
  Why do you prefer ED on CPM to that on UNIX/Linux?
  - LawrenceWoodman 6y ago
    I think it's generally cleaner, more elegant and the combining of commands on a line is easier. I love that you can create macros such as: MNCPM^Z0TT6Z-3DICP/M^Z This will go through a file bigger than memory, display each line containing 'CPM', pause and then replace it with 'CP/M'. However, there are things I like in ED/EX such as the regular expressions.
    - hilbert42 6y ago
      Right, thanks for that. I've not used either in a while and when I did there was a long separation between using one then the other so it's a bit lost to memory (same for Vim). Despite my earlier criticism of ED, I've always liked CP/M's command line structure and switch parameters. For example, here's one I think I remember: PIP B:=A: [V O] (I hope that's right, it's been a long time.) I wonder if that elogence is Kildall's work, as I've never been sure whether GK just took the PDP/DEC command stuff verbatim or whether he altered some items.
hilbert42 6y ago
"Really, they serve totally different functions." Technically yes, but thousands of programs were written in them. I can only say that I wasn't the only one who didn't like it (and I had every reason to love it as even at home I had a fully equipped GodBout/CompuPro dual proc 8085/86 S100 system running CP/M and CP/M86 which was pretty much the king of CP/M systems. (Incidentally, I used to edit the HMXBIOS assembler code for that in WordStar in non document mode. For me it was a dream to used compared with. ED. Even my resident assembler guru who considered any high level language you'd name too wasteful of CPU cycles, would send a file from a serial port on the CP/M machine to his Intel development system and edit it there then send it back again rather than using ED. I've seen this dichotomy many times amongst programmers and I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with the ergonomics of the way people think and work.

hilbert42 6y ago

Perhaps the reason you love it is because you've spend a great amount of time using it to the extent that its use has become completely automatic to you. If you read my other post above you'll note that I use many editors and that constantly swapping from one to another is a bit of a pain. When I was using CP/M, almost from the outset I had three editors at my disposal, specifically Ed, WordMaster and WordStar. Of the three, it was generally accepted that WordMaster was the easiest for a novice to learn. WordStar was harder to learn but much more powerful. Thus Ed was reserved for when setting up a CP/M system as it came on the 8" floppy along with CP/M. On the other hand WM and WS were third party products and came on a separate floppy. If they'd been always available then I don't think Ed would have been used at all. Ed always had the reputation of being a bit of a PIA and no one wanted to use it if the other two editors were available. It was always looked upon as being primitive by comparison. As WS was more powerful and flexible, Ed was thus confined to editing when only CP/M files were available. Today, that comparison would be like comparing Notepad with say UltraEdit, which, incidentally, is my current text-based editor of choice (it having both Windows and Linux versions).

hungryforcodes 6y ago
But to be fair, ED is an actual editor, and incrediably useful in CP/M for quick fixes, edits and various other things. WordMaster and WordStar are word processors. Really, they serve totally different functions. (I love ED too btw)