I've previously been able to edit large files with vim, emacs as far back as 1998 and other editors on OSX for a while, what would happen in editors such as hex

I've previously been able to edit large files with vim, emacs as far back as 1998 and other editors on OSX for a while, what would happen in editors such as hexfiend, glogg, pilotedit,vim,emacs etc ? Unless bbedit available for another platform that wasn't osx ? (my history is shady).