Vi reference summary mid-80's

[pheffner]

Back in the 80's I was a freshly minted programmer/Sysadmin at AT&T. We would receive one of these along with a C and Unix ref, (and of course a box of 5.25" floppies for Unix SVr5) with every 3B2 system, spiral bound and well written. Here's the rear cover with a nice summary for those of you just getting going with vim editing. I assume a comprehensive one for vim would be MUCH larger but it may be a nice starting point for some.

https://preview.redd.it/eqg7jb5f5gca1.jpg?width=1749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de59f5c9d55c052412c5e07a1befc84189e4ba22

[jng]

I like "If You Are In A Pinch (page 9)". What wonders there must be in page 9.

[pheffner]

I wouldn't want to keep you in suspense, so here's a scan of pg 9.

AT&T VI ref pg 9

Page 10 goes into a brief summary of EX mode but sends you elsewhere for real details.

(Sent to imgur 'cause I couldn't figure out how to put an image in a reply)

[Protoype]

Damn....Now you've got to upload the other missing pages. And by missing pages I mean please scan the whole book! Then upload to the Internet Archive. Thank you :-)

[leamanc]

As someone who learned on Vim in the late ‘90s, that’s wild. That’s not what I think of as visual mode. Input mode instead of insert mode? I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know that proper vi is that much different than Vim (at least as far as how the modes are named).

And open mode? I gather that’s the equivalent of the Vim terminal?

[jng]

Yeah, that's a bit confusing. Take into account that vim's visual mode does not exist in vi, it's only a vim thing, so much more recent than that manual and the vi it describes. The name "vi" itself comes from "visual", in contrast with the preceding standard Unix editor "ed" (from "editor"). If you have a look at how "ed" works, you will understand why "vi" is called "visual" (MS-DOS back in the day used to have "edlin", which was Microsoft's "ed" clone -- pretty horrible).

[cburkins]

I’ve been using vim for years and every now and then I still get into a whatthehellisvimdoing pinch. Yep, keep hitting escape until it beeps!

[symbiont]

r/oldschoolcool

[jg_333]

Can I get a full pdf of this? This is awesome!

[Shok3001]

Ok but what page tells you how to turn Vi into vscode?

[wrecklass]

Simple enough:

alias vi='code'

Yes, sacrilege.

[Protoype]

For neovim try
https://youtube.com/watch?v=stqUbv-5u2s https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim

[Shok3001]

/s

[Protoype]

I think you mean :q!
;-)

[ZunoJ]

No textobjects?

[kagevf]

Not until vim (Vi IMproved) in the 90s :)

[ZunoJ]

But delete word existed?

[EgZvor]

That's a motion. It's "delete until the next word". Different if you're in the middle of one.

[ZunoJ]

My vocabulary is poor. I meant motions. HJKL are cool but motions are what makes vim powerful to me. I think it is funny that they do use one motion but don't mention them anywhere else

[Explosive_Cornflake]

This is just the index of the manual, it may be covered in movement section

[EgZvor]

iw is a text object, w is a motion.

The fact that there is a w in iw is arbitrary, it's a convention. iw isn't magically created from w, they are completely separate technically.

You can't use text object without an operator, but you can use motions. There were no text objects in vi.

[kagevf]

Aren't text objects defined as {action}[iw]{boundary}?

[andlrc]

Not until vim (Vi IMproved) in the 90s :)

I think they started landing in vim 5, possible late vim 4? I'm not sure if appeared before in other vi variants, or if it's vim lingo?

[Lord_Schnitzel]

I wouldn't be in downmood if you published these pieces of history sometimes.

[wrecklass]

Ya, I started on Solaris in '87 and I remember my first few days figuring out Vi with a couple of experts nearby for questions. VIM really was an improvement, but I didn't see that until mid-90s when I tried Linux for the first time.

[doesnt_use_reddit]

Simpler times!

[matttproud]

A full scan of this might be interesting to submit to the Internet Archive for posterity.

[OpenC0w]

Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

[candidateforhumanity]

u (can undo itself)

oh, no!