fin@norge.unet.umn.edu (Craig A. Finseth) (01/03/91)
In article <662870458.24806@ontmoh.UUCP> rwh@ontmoh.UUCP (Russell Herman) writes: >PE, officially known as the IBM Personal Editor, was written by Jim Wylie of >IBM around 1982. The first version was sold in the standard IBM PC slipcase >package of that era. When the only editor available for DOS was EDLIN, it >represented a quantum leap in PC tool quality, making it possible to develop ... >PE was innovative in that it is a full-screen editor with block-marking for >delete, cut, and paste. It also can be operated with settable margins and ... >Russell Herman ... I beg to differ, but Mince was available for the IBM PC very shortly after the first IBM PCs were available in stores. (I remember haunting the Sears Business Center in Burlington MA....) Mince had all of the listed features and many more, including non-interactive extensibiility (you got source code and had to recompile) and the Emacs command set. Craig A. Finseth fin@unet.umn.edu [CAF13] University Networking Services +1 612 624 3375 desk University of Minnesota +1 612 625 0006 problems 130 Lind Hall, 207 Church St SE +1 612 626 1002 FAX Minneapolis MN 55455-0134, U.S.A.
keating@motcid.UUCP (Edward Keating) (01/04/91)
In article <662870458.24806@ontmoh.UUCP>, rwh@ontmoh.UUCP (Russell Herman) writes: > > A few years ago I heard rumors of its being released yet again as PE3, but > I never saw any identified vendor. I suspect there have been many copies > passed hand-to-hand; having the manual on disk makes this much easier. > I've also seen bootlegs on some BBSs with a slightly later date than > mine, but what this represents I don't really know. But I'm pleased to have > one of the original magenta-labelled floppies identifying an authorized > Personal Editor II copy. I also have used PE2 for a number of years (and PE before that). The last contact with PE2 was an internal version within IBM that loaded files about 4 x faster than standard PE2 and fixed the copy to/from command line bugs. That version was written in PASCAL and was supplied by PDS ( which was sold off by IBM) Their number was 1-800-IBM-PCSW. They did have a product called PC3 which was a complete rewrite by Adam Dougless (last know address uunet!crash!adamsd ) which he wrote in MSC 5.2. It wasn't as bulletproof as PE2 but had a similar look and feel. I still use my copy of PE2 (the unchained version that IBM Internal used) on 8088 based PC's and places were only EDLIN is available. For newer machines where disk is no problem, I have started using Brief 3.0. It's fine for 286 and up machines, but is a tad sluggish and requires a sizeable amount of disk on 8088 machines. Brief's search and replace features are far superior to the limited search of PE2, but PE2 column cut paste are faster on an 8088 than Brief on a 12.5 Mhz 286. One feature of PE2 that is difficult to find or emulate in other editors was the tab character use. When loading a file, tabs would be expanded to spaces at a standard every 8 positions. When storing back to disk, non-significant spaces would be re-compressed to tabs. The tab key did not enter tabs, but was used to quickly move the cursor around the screen. The tabs stops would set the next position to move the cursor but did not effect the compression of spaces to tabs at the 8-1 ratio. This effect was fine for display or printing the files with peripherals that understand tab expansion. I did try to work up some Brief macros for doing this, but If you want to use tab stops, you end up putting real tabs into the file. I have since given up using this feature and have brief put in spaces instead of tabs. Pe2 also removed trailing spaces from lines. You can write macro's to do this function, but it was nice to be performed automatically. macros to expand sources files containing tabs, but -- A fool and his backup are soon parted.
staff@cadlab.sublink.ORG (Alex Martelli) (01/04/91)
rwh@ontmoh.UUCP (Russell Herman) writes: ... >A few years ago I heard rumors of its being released yet again as PE3, E3 was an internal program who almost replaced PE2 use inside IBM (together with T, another unrelated PE-lookalike whose claim to fame was incredible speed and size - 9Kbytes!); it was hugely programmable (later internal versions of PE2 were also strong on this, using REXX as a 'macro language', but the integrated semicompiled configuration language of E3 was faster/smoother/cheaper in RAM terms than a full blown REXX interpreter coresident with the editor, although REXX had advantages in familiarity [being the macro language for VM/SP's XEDIT, as well as one of SAA's keypoints, and popular on other systems as well as on PCs], generality, power). I *believe* (not sure, as I was getting out of IBM at the time) that E3's author later left IBM, and that it is his work (probably a full rewrite of E3?) that's now being sold as 'Multi-Edit', which another poster mentioned. -- Alex Martelli - CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Stalingrado 53, Bologna, Italia Email: (work:) staff@cadlab.sublink.org, (home:) alex@am.sublink.org Phone: (work:) ++39 (51) 371099, (home:) ++39 (51) 250434; Fax: ++39 (51) 366964 (work only), Fidonet: 332/401.3 (home only).
steveha@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Hastings) (01/08/91)
In article <662870458.24806@ontmoh.UUCP> rwh@ontmoh.UUCP (Russell Herman) writes: >Someone at IBM established a >"Personally Developed Software" marketing arm, where programs could be >purchased on diskette for quite reasonable prices. PE2 was marketed under >this scheme until the Personally Developed Software program was discontinued. >A few years ago I heard rumors of its being released yet again as PE3, but >I never saw any identified vendor. It is my pleasure to inform the Net that PE3 is available, now. IBM did not junk Personally Developed Software; they spun them off, and Personally Developed Software still exists today. Their number: 800/IBM-PCSW which translates to 800/426-7279 I called that number just now and asked about the availability of PE2. "We don't have that anymore," said the person who answered. I asked about a newer version, such as PE3. "Oh, sure, we have that," she said. $80. Have your credit card number ready when you call the number and you can order over the phone. She said they don't have a catalog anymore, but that they do have a mailing list and they send information to people on the list. -- Steve "I don't speak for Microsoft" Hastings ===^=== ::::: uunet!microsoft!steveha steveha@microsoft.uucp ` \\==|