QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (11/08/90)
Would anyone from an academic site (they tend to have less money :-)) be willing to share their experiences of this product? Is it worth it compared to STEVIE for example? Is the support good? Is it a 100% clone? Thanks. Alan Thew University of Liverpool Computer Laboratory Bitnet/Earn: QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK or QQ11%UK.AC.LIVERPOOL @ UKACRL UUCP : ....!mcsun!ukc!liv!qq11 Voice: +44 51 794 3735 Internet : QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK or QQ11%LIVERPOOL.AC.UK @ NSFNET-RELAY.AC.UK
epames@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon) (11/09/90)
In article <90312.135743QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK writes: >Would anyone from an academic site (they tend to have less money :-)) >be willing to share their experiences of this product? Is it worth >it compared to STEVIE for example? Is the support good? Is it a 100% >clone? > I am a private user with even less money and I have been using the entire MKS toolkit for several years. My first exposure to vi was with MKS vi and I think that it is if anything better than the vi that I am using to write this item (SUN Version 3.7, 6/7/85). The whole toolkit is in my opinion indispensible for anyone who is forced to use MS-DOS. Michael Salmon L.M.Ericsson Stockholm The above opinions are mine alone and should not be considered to be an expression of company policy. I have no connection with Mortice Kern Systems except as a very satisfied customer.
gast@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) (11/12/90)
In article <90312.135743QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK writes: >Would anyone from an academic site (they tend to have less money :-)) >be willing to share their experiences of this product? Is it worth >it compared to STEVIE for example? Is the support good? Is it a 100% >clone? In general MKS vi and the MKS toolkit in general are excellent. The toolkit includes the Korn Shell and the new version of awk. Chances are that your site does not have those. On the other hand, the price has risen significantly over the past couple years at the same time that they introduced a version for that half an operating system. Using dos without the mks toolkit is like being in a stall without tp. (You can do your work, but it is inconvenient and messy). I have never used stevie, so I cannot comment on that aspect. I have found the support to be acceptable to excellent, but I have never called them up and asked "how do I do X?" There are a few minor differences, at least with the version of vi I am used to. 1) With mks vi using a function key resets dot. I prefer that dot not be reset, but perhaps it was a bug that dot was not reset. 2) There is a known bug with many versions of vi in that "d}" saves 3 copies into the numbered buffers. (It should only save one copy). mks vi does not have this bug. 3) There may be other bug/feature fixes as well. I don't have a list. 4) One trouble I always have with dos is that I invariably hit the backspace key instead of the delete key. With mks vi I tried :map ^H ^V^? but when I then typed backspace, disaster resulted. With my the vi I normally use, there is no such problem. Other than those comments mentioned above, I can think of no differences off the top of my head. It even supports ^Z. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast