Fortunately, I don't have to write up an explanation of this, as Joy and Horton already did. * https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/viin/paper-7.html#section53 https:

Fortunately, I don't have to write up an explanation of this, as Joy and Horton already did. * https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/viin/paper-7.html#section53 https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/viin/paper-7.html#section53 It's basically the answer to the question of how one does vi-like visual editing when the cursor cannot be moved to arbitrary locations on the terminal, or sometimes cannot even be moved upwards. Amusing factoid: It's actually sort of the other way around. open mode was added to ex before visual mode was. visual mode is the answer to the question of how you can take advantage of an ability to move the cursor around arbitrarily. * https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/1565924266/1565924266_vi6-ch-9-sect-1.html https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/1565924... VIM and STEVIE never implemented it. VIM makes :open do the same as :visual . nvi and nvi2 issue a 'not implemented' error for the :open nex command. Watcom vi does not even have :open . Nor do NeoVIM, nextvi, neatvi, and viless. Mortice Kern vi has open mode. So does elvis version 2.