brown@nicmad.UUCP (Vidiot) (03/21/89)
There is a person at my work that is interested in finding the VMS editor, called EDT, for the PC. If anyone knows of a ported version, please let me know via e-mail. Thanks in advance. -- harvard-\ att--\ Vidiot ucbvax!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!brown rutgers-/ decvax--/ ARPA/INTERNET: nicmad!brown%astroatc.UUCP@spool.cs.wisc.edu
bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (03/28/89)
In article <3790@nicmad.UUCP>, brown@nicmad.UUCP (Vidiot) writes: > > There is a person at my work that is interested in finding the VMS editor, > called EDT, for the PC. If anyone knows of a ported version, please let me > know via e-mail. > As seems to be all too common on the net, mail doesn't get through, so I'm replying to the net as a whole. My apologies if this annoys anyone .... There are several different EDT-like editors that I know about for the PC. The one I know the most about is a commercial product from Boston Business Computing, though it is fairly expensive for an editor ($295). I have seen ads for other EDT-like editors, and even a TPU-like editor, but this is the most well-known. Offhand I don't remember the companies that sell the other editors -- they have not had a great deal of exposure at least at this address. There are a couple of public domain KED-like editors that I've seen for the DEC Rainbow, but never full EDT and not on the PC (though I wouldn't be surprised if a public-domain EDT for the PC existed). Anyway, the PC-EDT product from BBC is a reasonably complete implementation, including both line mode and keypad mode commands, and macro definitions. The major piece missing is that although NOKEYPAD mode commands (a third mode, not to be confused with line mode or keypad mode) work in macro definitions, the full NOKEYPAD screen mode is not implemented (that is, the only way you can execute a NOKEYPAD mode command is to put it in a macro!). This isn't much of a problem for most EDT users -- I don't think I've seen very many EDT users using NOKEYPAD screen mode since KEYPAD mode was implemented lo these many moons ago (maybe 10 years now). PC-EDT also supports DEC EDT things like journaling, as well as PC-specific things like different screen colors and different keyboard scan codes (You can define a macro for ALT-G for example, obviously not possible on a normal terminal). I seem to be constantly jumping between a PC and a VAX, and even though my brain may know all the differences between the typical editors on the two systems, there always seems to be a period of painful adjustment as my fingers re-adjust. PC-EDT plus a 101-key keyboard go a long way towards making the adjustment as painless as possible. The only major drawbacks I know about are the relatively high price, and the fairly slow performance if you turn on full journaling (probably to be expected on a system without multitasking, where it can't really start up another thread to log your edit session to the journal file). If you turn off journaling it's reasonably quick, and either way you can edit a file limited only by the amount of disk space available (though editing a really huge file can also give you a big performance hit ... still, many PC editors just croak when they see a file with 1MB in it, or else they make you edit it in pages which is still a big headache). BBC also sells VCL, a DCL (DEC Command Language) shell for the PC. It looks pretty complete (symbols, logical names which I assume get translated to environment variables, all those qualifiers missing from the PC file management commands like /SINCE and /CONFIRM, even the lexical functions), but somehow that seems to be less of a problem, especially since I've accumulated a lot of programs on the PC that do more-or-less equivalent things. Somehow it seems easier to remember to type a different command to the C> prompt than it is to reprogram my fingers. I guess if I were trying to move command files / batch files between the two systems it would make more sense, but I'm not the kind of VMS user that creates 2000-line DCL command files like some people I've known. Boston Business Computing can be reached at: 360 Merrimack Street Riverwalk Center Lawrence, Massachusetts 01843 508-683-7920 Hope this helps -- Bruce C. Wright