So since you were there ... I never did understand the point (or the
distinction) between VISUAL and EDITOR. More specifically, I never
understood when you were supposed to use one versus the other.
i can answer that one.
in the bad old days, if you were working on a slow dialup (300 or
1200 baud), or, actually, a printing terminal at any speed, you'd
probably want to invoke ed or ex. if you were working on a
"high-speed" 9600 baud terminal, you'd likely want vi or emacs etc.
so a program like mail would offer two escapes (~e vs. ~v) to let yo
invoke either.
So ... I guess programs would look at the terminal and if your speed was
9600 baud or greater, you'd use VISUAL, and if it was slower you'd use
EDITOR? I could believe that (although from memory I don't recall vi
being that bad at 2400 baud, but it was a while ago!).
--Ken
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