Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!gatech!dcatla!holos0!lbr
From: lbr@holos0.UUCP (Len Reed)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor
Message-ID: <1917@holos0.UUCP>
Date: 13 Mar 89 22:06:55 GMT
References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <9653@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <5552@brspyr1.BRS.Com> <3370@ficc.uu.net> <7324@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: lbr@holos0.UUCP (Len Reed)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Holos Software, Inc., Atlanta, GA
Lines: 27

In article <7324@boulder.Colorado.EDU> walkerb@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Brian Walker) writes:
>Actually, for all of it's clunks and clatters, vi is livable....
>And, you can learn to hit the dreaded [esc] key.

I use vi, simply because it is already installed on every Unix or Xenix
machine I sit down at, and I can put in on MS-DOS machines (which
I sometimes have to deal with).  I'm a consultant and spend time on
my machines and on various customers machines.

The dreaded Escape key is a problem because it's in a different place on
every machine.  But there's a real easy work-around for that: the '['
is almost always to the right of the 'P', and control-[ is an Ascii escape.
I also touch type ^H for backspace and ^I for tab, since those keys wander
all over, too.

I know a tiny subset of Brief because it's the editor one of my customers
is using on his PCs, and it has the utterly brain-damaged "feature"
of not liking touch-typed ^H, ^[, etc.; apparantly it cares about the
"scan codes." I just seeth when I see a circle when I type ^H.  Yeah, I know
that Brief's macro capabilities could get me around this, but the only
reason I'm using it is because I'm sitting at someone else's PC, so *my*
macros wouldn't be there, anyway.

Now, does anyone have a solution to idiot keyboard makers that put the caps
lock key where the Ctrl key should be?
-- 
    -    Len Reed