psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) (01/26/89)
<"He seemed like such a nice man . . . and then he turned out to be a writer!"> In a prior article, heagley@hc.DSPO.GOV (Daniel L. Neagley) wrote: > >A company called Custom Software Systems have(had?) a port of the UN*X > >editor VI for the PC. I called the number that I had from an old ad, > >but the number has been disconnected with no new number given. In article <8400005@gistdev>, jeff@gistdev.UUCP writes: > Custom Software Systems does have the BEST PC implementation of VI, > however, they are no more. > > A while ago, AT&T took them to court over two of their other products, > PC/TOOLS and PC/SPELL, but not for PC/VI. Apparently, CSS used AT&T > source code for spell and many other UN*X tools in PC/TOOLS without paying > AT&T for them. As a result, they paid AT&T an undisclosed amount and > ceased all operations. That's my understanding, too. > It is a pity because we have a site license for PC/VI which I feel is the > best port to the MS-DOS world available. They even fixed "set > noerrorbells" so that it actually worked. I hope that someone may buy > PC/VI from them in a bankruptcy deal and continue to work on it. Well, PC/VI required an ANSI.SYS-like driver (preferably FANSI.SYS), as I recall. There's also the disturbing possibility that, like PC/TOOLS and PC/SPELL, PC/VI was based on licensed (not by them) AT&T source code. CSS would still own the changes, but anyone who wanted to sell the package would still need to pay AT&T. This isn't legal trickery. AT&T owns the vi source code, period. (Yes, some large part of it was originally written at UCB. I don't know all the details of the transfer.) CSS took AT&T source code, and used it as the basis of a commercial product without reimbursing the company responsible for writing it in the first place. As far as I know, it's possible that CSS wrote PC/VI from scratch. I don't know AT&T's official position on that product. At any rate, if it's not based on AT&T code, then, yes, someone else could bring it back to market. > >If Custom Software has gone away, does anyone know of another company > >that has Vi for the PC? Mortice Kern Systems, 35 King St. North, Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA N2J 2W9, uunet!mks!inquiry, 519-884-2251. They sell it by itself, or as part of the MKS Toolkit. I don't have the current prices handy (the Toolkit just went up, I think.) > Jeff Johnson Global Information Systems Technology, Inc. > jeff%gistdev@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu, {uunet,pur-ee,convex}!uiucuxc!gistdev!jeff Paul S. R. Chisholm, psrc@pegasus.att.com (formerly psc@lznv.att.com) AT&T Bell Laboratories, att!pegasus!psrc, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm UNIX(R) is a registered trademark of AT&T. Other than that, I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.