mse/README
2022-02-08 15:11:56 -04:00

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MSE, or the Minimal Screen Editor, is a screen-oriented version of the
Unix editor ed. It contains a number of quirks, and is somewhat
idiosyncratic at times, but if you're patient I think you'll find it
rather enjoyable.
When I came across it (looking for an ed with a UI), I decided to start
writing patches removing obsolete and unneeded code - eventually these
will turn into my own version of a screen-oriented ed.
ORIGINAL README FOLLOWS.
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http://se-editor.org/
This is the source code for the text editor, se ('Screen Editor').
se is a screen oriented version of the classic UNIX text editor ed.
The editor implements many of the commands of ed, but instead of
being line oriented, se is screen oriented.
Se started out as the version of 'ed' that came with the book 'Software
Tools', by Kernighan and Plauger, which was written in Ratfor. On the Pr1me
computers at the School of Information and Computer Science at Georgia Tech,
Dan Forsyth, Perry Flinn, and Alan Akin added all the enhancements suggested
in the exercises in the book, and some more of their own. Jack Waugh made
extensive modifications to turn it into a screen editor; further work was done
by Dan Forsyth. All of this was in an improved Georgia Tech version of Ratfor.
Later, Dan Forsyth, then at Medical Systems Development Corporation,
converted the Ratfor version into C, for Berkeley Unix (4.1 BSD). At Georgia
Tech, Arnold Robbins took the C version and added many new features and
improvements, the most important of which was termcap support and System V
support. The existing help screens were edited and completed at that time, as
well. This was completed in early 1985.
In early 2013, Thomas Cort continued maintenance of se, modernizing
the code base and build system to support current POSIX operating systems.
Thomas' primary motivation is to preserve this bit of computing history.
His goals are to squash any remaining bugs and make se as portable as
possible. No major new features will be added. He can be reached at
tcort@se-editor.org