Computer History Notes - Herong's Tutorial Notes - v3.13, by Herong Yang
What Is vi Text Editor
This section provides a quick introduction of 'vi' text editor, a display screen oriented editor, that allows files to be displayed on the screen and edited anywhere on the screen.
What Is "vi" (visual)? - "vi" is a display oriented interactive text editor. When using vi the screen of your terminal acts as a window into the file which you are editing. Changes which you make to the file are reflected in what you see.
"vi" was developed by Bill Joy in 1976 on a Lear-Siegler ADM3A terminal at University of California, Berkeley. The ADM3A terminal has no separate arrow keys on the keyboard. Arrows are located on h, j, k and l keys. This is why 'h', 'j', 'k', and 'l' are used as commands to move the cursor on the screen in vi.
"vi" was built upon the "Ex" editor, a line-oriented text editor that edits a text file one line at a time.
"vi" offers the following main features:
The picture below shows an ADM3A terminal keyboard, on which Bill Joy developed the 'vi' display screen text editor:
Table of Contents
2002 - .NET Framework Developed by Microsoft
1995 - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor Created by Rasmus Lerdorf
1995 - Java Language Developed by Sun Microsystems
1991 - WWW (World Wide Web) Developed by Tim Berners-Lee
1991 - Gopher Protocol Created by a University of Minnesota Team
1984 - X Window System Developed a MIT Team
1984 - Macintosh Developed by Apple Inc.
1983 - "Sendmail" Mail Transfer Agent Developed by Eric Allman
1979 - The Tcsh (TENEX C Shell) Developed by Ken Greer
1978 - Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) Developed by Brian Fox
1978 - The C Shell Developed by Bill Joy
1977 - The Bourne Shell Developed by Stephen Bourne
1977 - Apple II Designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
►1976 - vi Text Editor Developed by Bill Joy
'vi' Commands to Move Cursor and Search for Locations
'vi' Commands to Insert and Change Text
'vi' Miscellaneous Commands in 'ex' Line Mode
1974 - Internet by Vinton Cerf
1972 - C Language Developed by Dennis Ritchie
1971 - FTP Protocol Created by Abhay Bhushan
1970 - UNIX Operating System Developed by AT&T Bell Labs