This is an email exchange I had with Bill Joy, author of the vi editor, regarding a rumor of a modeless version of vi that supported multiple buffers.
From elf Sat May 17 10:43:11 -0400 1997 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["308" "Sat" "17" "May" "1997" "10:43:11" " -0400" "luis fernandes" "elf@ee.ryerson.ca" nil "7" "vi mythology" nil "wnj@sw.central.sun.com" "Bill Joy" "5" nil nil (number " " mark "U To: Bill Joy May 17 7/308 " thread-indent "\"vi mythology\"\n") nil nil] nil) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: luis fernandes <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> To: wnj@sw.central.sun.com (Bill Joy) Subject: vi mythology X-Mailer: VM 6.29 under Emacs 19.34.1 A rumor (long circulating in alt.folklore.computers) recently surfaced (in gnu.misc.discuss) that you had once written a mode-less version of vi, with multiple buffers, &c. but that the sources were lost after a system crash and that there were no recent backups. Can you confirm this or is it apocryphal?
From VM Sat May 17 12:00:07 1997 Content-Length: 520 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["520" "Sat" "17" "May" "1997" "09:45:48" "-0700" "bill joy" "wnj@Central.Sun.COM" nil "14" "Re: vi mythology" "^From:" nil nil "5" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Return-Path: <wnj@Central.Sun.COM> Received: from data.zgsw.COM ([20x.22x.1x.1x]) by ee.ryerson.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08342; Sat, 17 May 97 11:44:36 EDT Received: from iw-asw.zgsw.com by data.zgsw.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA21398; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:41:48 -0600 Received: from nt-loma by iw-asw.zgsw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA05187; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:43:30 -0600 Message-Id: <337DE0BC.176292C8@zgsw.com> Reply-To: bill.joy@sun.com Organization: sun microsystems X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b4 [en] (WinNT; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199705171443.KAA16103@gemini.ryerson.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: bill joy <wnj@Central.Sun.COM> To: luis fernandes <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> Subject: Re: vi mythology Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 09:45:48 -0700 luis fernandes wrote: > > A rumor (long circulating in alt.folklore.computers) recently > surfaced (in gnu.misc.discuss) that you had once written a mode-less > version of vi, with multiple buffers, &c. but that the sources were > lost after a system crash and that there were no recent backups. > > Can you confirm this or is it apocryphal? thats pretty much correct. there was a problem with a dec tape drive on which backups were being taken. i lost a few weeks of work and never got back to it. regards, bill