The vi editor was developed starting around 1976 by Bill Joy, who was then a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley. Joy later went on to help found Sun Microsystems and became its Chief Scientist.
[from ‘Visual Interface’] A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. Became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT until the rise of EMACS after about 1984. Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup on older versions provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (years ago, a correspondent reported that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/; there is now a vi clone named vile). Nevertheless vi (and variants such as vim and elvis) is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of EMACS). See holy wars.
Emacs user… wow, didn’t know any of that. Was at UCB 80-84. Switched to Gosling’s emacs in 82ish, GNU in 83 while rms was visiting UCB. He shared Prof Fateman’s grad student office. Wild times.
The vi editor was developed starting around 1976 by Bill Joy, who was then a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley. Joy later went on to help found Sun Microsystems and became its Chief Scientist.
https://www.linfo.org/vi/history.html
https://world.hey.com/dhh/wonderful-vi-a1d034d3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_(text_editor)
https://www.theregister.com/software/2003/09/11/bill-joys-gr...
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/unix-review-in...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rByrD_R9Vuo
This 1984 Interview in Unix Review should be a submission on it's own.
Early photos of Bill!
Out of curiosity, turns 50 based on what? I can't find any reference that it's first release was in Nov 1976 or anything along those lines.
Most sources just say "started development in 1976".
Original 1999 Linux Magazine Interview:
The Joy of Unix
Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy charts where Linux and free software fit into his company's solar system.
by Eugene Eric Kim
https://web.archive.org/web/20000303115338/http://www.linux-...
vi: /V�I/, not, /vi:/, never, /siks/, n.
[from ‘Visual Interface’] A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. Became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT until the rise of EMACS after about 1984. Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup on older versions provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (years ago, a correspondent reported that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/; there is now a vi clone named vile). Nevertheless vi (and variants such as vim and elvis) is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of EMACS). See holy wars.
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/V/vi.html
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Emacs user… wow, didn’t know any of that. Was at UCB 80-84. Switched to Gosling’s emacs in 82ish, GNU in 83 while rms was visiting UCB. He shared Prof Fateman’s grad student office. Wild times.
emacs sucks on pc keyboards. I hate it too.
Do they have :x for :wq ? I've been trying to track where :x came from and have come up short.