BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (Bard Bloom) (08/28/85)
There are ads in Byte (p. 397 for September) for MIX editor and C compiler, for rather good prices ($30 and $40). They look rather neat on paper -- the editor has customization and keyboard macros and lets you run DOS from inside the editor. On the other talon, almost everything looks neat on paper. Has anyone tried this out on a computer? Is it worth $30? Does it work on non-PC-compatibles? Thanks, Bard (Bard @ MIT-XX) -------
smd@cvl.UUCP (Stanley Dunn) (08/29/85)
> > Has anyone tried this out on a computer? Is it worth $30? > 1. I am sorry that this is so long. I have been using the MIX editor now for about a month on a Morrow MD3 Z80 CPM system. I decided to order it over the telephone after reading a review of the editor in net.micro.cpm. These are my impressions after using the editor for a month. First of all, the service was fine. The woman who took my order on the telephone said the editor would arrive in 5 or 6 days via UPS, and sure enough, it was here. I immediately proceeded to run the terminal setup pro- gram (SETEDIT.COM, I believe) to create the setup file SETUP.EDT which is used by the editor. This is were the problems began because the entry for the ADM 31 in setedit.com is not correct. If you select the ADM 31 and write a text file instead of the binary file for the editor (different menu selection in setedit.com) you will see that both DELETE LINE and REVERSE SCROLL are "ESC-E", whereas REVERSE SCROLL should be "ESC-E CNTL-K". This took some time to track down, but with the text file I could edit the changes and actually add the insert character features (and so forth) for my terminal that are not in the setup file. Now the fun begins. I can now enter the editor and edit text files, and view the nice help files. These are really kind of cute, since the help files show the functions broken down by category and the keys they are bound to. Since I have had enough of Wordstar (the original key bind- ings for the MIX editor) I immediately began to write a setup file for EMACS-like key bindings. This was much easier to do than I expected. I started around 8:00 PM and was finished by 11:00 PM, plus the two hours it took to get the terminal configuration correct. I can safely say that in one evening I got the editor set up the way I wanted it. I cannot say that I am entirely pleased with the pro- duct however. There are two problems with the MIX editor that I have encountered over the past month. The first is how the editor handles tabs. The use of tabs is toggled by the command "BC" or "blank compression." Tabs are expanded when the editor comes up, and using the command "BC" will then compress the blanks into tabs. The problem is that if you happen to have a single space exactly in a tab column, the editor will replace the single space with a tab. I found out the hard way by editing a section of my thesis at home and then downloading it to school for typesetting. In a 3 to 4 page section this happend 168 times. The problem with leaving blank compression off is that all the tabs are replaced by spaces which is ok for my thesis, but not for the source to Modem 700. I was editing Modem 700 which is 152 K with tabs and with blank compression off, I found after exiting the editor that the source was now 220 K. With 384 K disks, I could no longer edit the dumb thing and keep a backup on one disk. This is what started the whole mess and prompted me to use blank compression on mode, but as you can see that does not do the trick. I really do not believe that a single space in a tab columns should be replaced by a tab character. This seems to be a bug in the editor. The second problem is related to the "JL" or join line command. I found that if two windows are open, and if a line is being deleted in the top window, the line of "+++++" that separates the two windows is deleted and cannot be replaced. This is more of an annoyance than anything, since with the separator line gone it is hard to tell if there is one window or two. The other complaint with "JL" is that when the text from below is moved up, there is still white space between the text. It is as if the newline is replace by a space, and then the screen is redrawn, but I cant be sure. This has been long enough, and I hope my comments are of some value to someone. My impressions of the MIX editor? I consider the problem with tabs to be quite serious, not just an annoyance. Once the tab problem and the other minor things are fixed, I would have to rate this editor as an excellent value. The multiple window and macro capabilities have proved to be extremely useful. I had no trouble writ- ing macros and the new key bindings to make MIX look like EMACS. That is more than I can say for EMACS. If anyone has read this far, and would like my EMACS-like MIX setup file, just send mail. - Stanley Dunn Univ. of Md. Dept. of Computer Science Univ. of Md. Computer Vision Lab seismo!umcp-cs!smd (preferred while cvl is being moved) seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!smd 9 9
Ghenis.pasa@XEROX.ARPA (08/30/85)
I called to order both the MIX editor and C compiler, and was told that the compiler wouldn't be ready for shipping until Sept 1st. Another case of premature advertising... I placed my order anyways (COD, I've heard too many horror stories) because of the positive reviews of the editor on net.micro. Hopefully I will receive them soon (next week?) and then I'll post my impressions on the C compiler.