Wow. I think you mean broken X, which makes sense because it isn't based on X and X isn't included by default. The command line vim uses the X clipboard. UNIX

Wow. I think you mean broken X, which makes sense because it isn't based on X and X isn't included by default. The command line vim uses the X clipboard. UNIX is a separate standard from X. IMO part of really appreciating UNIX is appreciating what is part of UNIX and what sits on top of it. I think that most server-side UNIX installs have a "broken" clipboard in vim too. The standard distribution of vim includes integration with X11 and Windows, and that's where console vim on linux gets its clipboard from. MacVim on OS X integrates with OS X and I just fired up the console vim and saw that the "+y and "+p use the Mac clipboard.